Ms D’Ambrosio said that senior Victorians will get an average increase to their pensioners’ rebate of just 2 per cent, significantly below the forecast rate of inflation.

“Mr Baillieu’s budget, far from addressing the spiralling cost of living for older Victorians, has made it harder on them through this miserly increase,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.

“By providing an increase that is two thirds of the forecast inflation rate of 2.75 per cent, Ted Baillieu is hurting older Victorians.

“Yet Ministers and MPs will have a bump of 2.5 per cent to their pay packet, adding insult to injury to older Victorians.”

Shadow Minister for the Seniors and Ageing Ms Mikakos said that despite promises made before the election, the budget made it clear Mr Baillieu had simply given up on cutting the cost of living.

“If this government cared about easing the cost of living for senior Victorians, Mr Baillieu wouldn’t have broken his promise,” Ms Mikakos said.

“When provided the opportunity in a parliamentary committee to explain why seniors will be stuck with a rebate that is far below inflation, the Premier failed to answer the question.

“Seniors are already paying more for public transport fares, and stamp duty and car registration.

“Mr Baillieu warned that this budget was going to be tough, but it has become clear that he meant it would be tough on the hip pockets of senior Victorians.”

The budget provides no capital funding to expand kindergartens that are bursting at the seams, while it cuts programs that support young children with special needs.

Shadow Minister for Children and Young Adults Jenny Mikakos said the Baillieu Government’s razor gang had targeted those who need support the most: families with young children.

“Mr Baillieu’s failure to invest in bigger and better kindergartens is sending Victoria backwards,” she said.

“Victoria’s kindergartens and the young families who rely on these services will be the ones paying the price.

“This failure to invest in kindergartens demonstrates that Mr Baillieu is walking away from his Government’s obligations under the National Partnership Agreement to provide 15 hours a week of kindergarten for all four year olds.

“This lack of investment also fails the Government’s own commitment to undertake the recommendations in the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry Report which recommends investment in expanding kindergartens to help vulnerable families.”

Ms Mikakos said the Baillieu Government axe had also fallen on $29 million worth of early intervention programs including:

• $23.9 million for 1000 extra Early Childhood Intervention Services places;
• $3.3 million for additional Kindergarten Inclusion Support Service placements to support children with high and complex needs to participate in mainstream kinder programs; and
• $1.8 million to provide incentives to practitioners in the early intervention area to upgrade their qualifications post graduate level in early childhood intervention studies.

Shadow Minister for Women, Danielle Green said this Budget had let women down on the issue of family violence.

“Mr Baillieu failed to provide adequate funding for the Government’s forthcoming family violence strategy,” Ms Green said.

“Victorian women’s health will also be affected by the axeing of the Victorian Cancer Action Plan, which would have seen breast cancer screening increase by 20,000 tests per year.

“TAFE cuts to hospitality and tourism courses, which encourage large numbers of women to obtain formal qualifications, will make more difficult for women in these sectors to obtain higher paid work.

“Victorians are beginning to realise the Government they voted for is very different from the one they have now.”

I understand Wyndham City Council has submitted two
applications to the state government under the 2011-12 integrated children’s
centre grants program seeking to build two early years centres on former school
sites to deal with the increased demand for four-year-old kinder services. The
Alamanda estate early years centre in particular is designed to service the
Point Cook community.

As Victoria is in the midst of a baby boom, with 70 000 babies
being born each day, more kindergarten places will be required. Given that the
Baillieu government has not provided any capital funding in this year’s state
budget for kindergarten infrastructure, I am concerned that councils like the
City of Wyndham will be left struggling to keep up with demand. Thankfully there
is federal government money at hand to meet this need.

I urge the minister to allocate the federal money she has
received as part of the national partnership to ensure that the city of Wyndham
receives funding to construct these two new early years centres to accommodate
the growing demand for kindergarten programs in that municipality.

Over the last decade in Victoria things improved have significantly for people with disabilities, their families and their carers.

The previous Labor government made a significant investment in
disability services to reflect its determination to ensure that people with a
disability have the same opportunities in life as other members of our community
and that they are included and valued by all of us. There was historic
investment in services over successive budgets to help people with a disability,
and Labor was able to provide accommodation or support to over 20 000 people
with a disability in 2010, up from just over 8000 when Labor came to office in
1999.

I was also pleased and proud that we introduced the first
autism state plan which took strong action to support families caring for people
with autism spectrum disorder. But perhaps the most significant reform work of
the previous government was through the development of the Victorian state
disability plan and the introduction of the Disability Act 2006.

The Disability Act 2006 legally recognised Victorians with a
disability, providing them with greater safeguards and protections. Together
with the Victorian state disability plan, it set the policy and legislative
framework for putting the needs of people with a disability at the core of our
planning and decision making in this area. It shifted the focus from disability
provider to individuals and aimed to ensure that each and every one of those
individuals had access to the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities as
all citizens of Victoria. A former Minister for Community Services, Sherryl
Garbutt, stated in her media release of 2006 that the reforms introduced would:

… recognise times have changed and people with disabilities are no longer
considered passive clients of services, but active citizens of our community
with rights and responsibilities.

The act came about as a result of a review of the Intellectually Disabled Persons’ Services Act 1986 and the Disability Services Act 1991. After a two-year community consultation, the result was the Disability Act 2006. The act provides for a stronger whole-of-government, whole-of-community response to the rights and needs of people with a disability, and it also provides a framework for the provision of high-quality services and
support for people with a disability.

The bill before us today seeks to make minor technical amendments to the principal act addressing a number of unintended consequences that have arisen in its operation since it commenced. The minister in her second-reading speech stated that:

These amendments will not change the policy intent of the legislation.

Having just outlined Labor’s significant policy and legislative reforms in the disability sector, I take this to be positive endorsement of our work. Improving our disability services sector continues to require a shared approach by government, families, communities and service providers. As is always the case with these types of partnerships, opportunities exist to strengthen and refine those approaches. It is for this reason that Labor will not be opposing this bill.

As I said earlier, this bill makes a range of minor technical amendments to the principal act. It seeks to clarify the definition of a residential service and change the eligibility requirements for membership of the Disability Services Board. The bill will also allow parents and/or guardians, who have previously been prohibited, to be members of the board.

Clause 9 of the bill provides for community visitors to be appointed generally, rather than for particular regions as is currently the case. It also clarifies the requirements for councils in relation to disability action plans. Clause 15 removes the requirement for a disability service provider to give a residential statement when accommodation is provided to a
person with a disability on a short-term basis for the purpose of providing respite to a carer of the person with a disability. I welcome this change for carers and families as it removes the extra task of completing detailed paperwork when all they need is a short break.

The bill also provides additional procedural matters in relation to possession orders and warrants of possession under clauses 32, 33 and 34.

Clause 35 provides for an additional category of persons who may give consent for a disability service provider to manage the money of a resident, being a person who the service provider is satisfied is a member of the resident’s family or is otherwise a significant person in the life of the resident.

This also includes someone who may informally manage or control the resident’s money.

The bill amends the way complaints are made in relation to contracted service providers and funded service providers, including giving the disability services commissioner jurisdiction over those complaints. The commissioner was created under the principal act to work with people with a disability and disability service providers to resolve complaints. Currently the commissioner has jurisdiction over complaints made by disability service
providers, and under the act this relates only to registered bodies on the register of disability service providers. The changes in this bill will allow the commissioner to investigate complaints over a greater number of providers.

The bill also makes separate provision in relation to restrictive interventions used on a person for whom a treatment plan is made, or is required to be made, and it changes the circumstances in which the presence of an independent person is required to be involved in a review of a behaviour support plan. It also provides for the approval of treatment plans by the senior practitioner and allows the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to make a determination in relation to the expiry of a supervision treatment order. It
allows for the review of an assessment order by VCAT. The bill amends the Human
Services (Complex Needs) Act 2009 to confer powers and functions under that act
on the Secretary of the Department of Human Services (DHS). Currently these
powers rest with the Secretary of the Department of Health.

While the bill seeks to streamline the processes for service delivery, I believe the recent announcement of 500 staff cutbacks in DHS will considerably impact on this outcome.

As we have heard today in the state budget, there will now be an additional 600 public service cuts, and it remains to be seen what impact this will have on disability services in our state. Being able to deliver high-quality services may require a skilled workforce, but a workforce nonetheless. Individuals should not need to fit around our services simply
because there is not enough staff available to provide for them. The Baillieu government’s announcement to cut DHS staff is not the way to provide better support for individuals and their families..

On Tuesday I spoke at some length about the provisions of the Disability
Amendment Bill 2012, and the matter I wish to touch upon today in concluding my
remarks in respect of this bill is that of the national disability insurance
scheme (NDIS). This is a groundbreaking reform proposed by the Gillard federal
Labor government which I think will be regarded as a historic reform similar to
the introduction of the Medicare system and other significant progressive
reforms in this country.

We have spoken in this Parliament in recent times about the
obligations that carers have. I could characterise these as a burden in many
respects for many families. Families contribute greatly to the care of their
disabled members. They lose a great deal of income in providing that care, and
many families with a person with a disability are doing it tough. I think that
would be widely acknowledged. I am sure we would all agree that these families
deserve additional support from government. The national disability insurance
scheme seeks to rectify the historical omission in terms of how social welfare
is provided in this country.

Comments have been made by a number of people indicating that
depending on how a person acquires a disability they can have differing levels
of care provided to them through the government. For example, a person who
acquired a brain injury or another serious injury through a motor vehicle
accident would have the support of the Transport Accident Commission.

A worker injured in a workplace would have the support of the
WorkCover scheme. However, a person born with a disability may only be able to
resort to disability services provided through state governments.

This anomaly was given attention at the rally at Federation
Square which I attended together with many parliamentary colleagues,
particularly from the state parliamentary Labor Party. At the rally one of the
speakers characterised it as the lottery of life. She said she had won the
lottery because she happened to have been injured in a motor vehicle accident
and therefore had support and extensive rehabilitation available to her through
the Transport Accident Commission.

The provision of these services should not be dependent on how
someone acquires a disability. There should be some equity in how support is
provided by government services irrespective of how a disability was acquired.

That is why the reform proposed by the federal Labor government
to introduce a national disability insurance scheme is so important and deserves
to be introduced at the earliest opportunity. The scheme is expected to assist
10 000 people from the middle of next year and by mid-2014 that figure is
expected to rise to 20 000 people. I particularly welcome the announcement by
the Prime Minister on Monday when she said she would ensure that adequate funds
would be provided in the federal budget next week to bring forward the
introduction of the scheme next year, rather than waiting until 2014.

This bill will provide for administrative and technical changes
as stepping stones towards the long-term goal of implementing a national
disability insurance scheme. Victoria has had extensive experience in the past
as a leader in the delivery of disability services, including self-directed
planning, support and funding. This is the direction in which Victoria has been
moving for some time.

The concept of a no-fault national disability insurance scheme
has been widely debated. It has been widely welcomed across the community,
culminating in the Productivity Commission’s reports to the federal government
and the subsequent announcement by the federal government that it would seek to
make this scheme a reality.

I believe the sector is poised to enter a new era of support
recognition and service provision once the scheme commences operation next year.
The announcement on Monday was that the NDIS would start in Australia from July
2014 in up to four locations across the country, which is a full year ahead of the timetable
previously set out by the Productivity Commission.

One thing I am concerned about is that on Monday the federal
Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, said he supported the scheme in
principle; however, he indicated that he did not agree with the scheme
commencing next year. It particularly alarmed me that on the same day the
federal shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, queried whether Australians would want to
pay more tax to fund an NDIS. We know Joe Hockey, while he was in London,
recently made comments calling for an end to what he termed ‘the age of
entitlement’. He said he believed Australia should move to a social welfare
system similar to that which exists in Asian countries. I was alarmed by those
comments because the social welfare system we have in place in Australia is one
that many people have fought long and hard to achieve through the trade union
movement.

The unions get a lot of criticism from members opposite, but
they have worked long and hard to achieve the types of protections that we now
have in this country in terms of providing a social welfare system that supports
people in need.

The Labor Party has also had a strong and long track record of
supporting such a scheme. Even previous federal governments — including the
Fraser government — were supportive of the Medicare system. I am pleased that
the federal government has not sought to adopt an American Republican Party type
of agenda to wind back the progressive reforms in this country. Every working
family and every Australian should be very alarmed by what Joe Hockey said
because it spells out a future agenda — –

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT — Order! The member should use the
correct terminology for a federal member of Parliament. He should be called ‘Mr Hockey’ or by his title.

Ms MIKAKOS– I was referring to Mr Hockey — –

Mrs Coote — Did you know Mr Hockey’s father was born in
Bethlehem?

Ms MIKAKOS — I have visited Bethlehem, and it is a very
interesting place to visit. What alarms me is if Mr Hockey becomes federal
Treasurer, we may well have very little chance of ever seeing the NDIS commenced
in this country, particularly given his recent remarks about what he claims we
have — that is, a culture of entitlement in this country. I strongly dispute
that.

I remind members that the Labor government was supportive of
this push to establish a national disability insurance scheme to improve the
lives of some of the most vulnerable members in our community.

We supported it whilst in government, and we support it now
that we are in opposition. We indicated our very strong support on Monday, but
we have also done so on previous occasions. Whilst I welcome the comments from
the Minister for Community Services, Ms Wooldridge, on Monday in which she
expressed support for the NDIS, it should be matched with action rather than
just rhetoric.

I point out that, aside from a very small investment in this
year’s state budget to prepare the sector for an NDIS, there is nothing in the
budget to suggest that Victoria is taking this commitment to the NDIS seriously
so far. In fact overall in this year’s state budget there is a cut to disability
services in Victoria in real terms, so if Minister Wooldridge and the Baillieu
government are serious about bringing forward the scheme a year early — as has
been indicated by the federal Labor government — they need to put some serious
money into preparation for the NDIS across the sector.

In conclusion, the previous Labor government made a significant
investment in disability services over the years. We believe we left a very
important platform on which to build, and one of the planks was the introduction
of the act that this bill seeks to amend. Whilst this bill is mostly technical
in nature, I trust that this bill acts as a stepping stone to building a
stronger and more accessible community in which every Victorian is actively
involved and valued, and for this reason the opposition will not be opposing the
bill.

Victorian teenagers and young adults are bombarded daily by
photos of airbrushed and photoshopped celebrities and models and stories of
miracle diets. The 2011 Mission Australia national survey of young Australians
found that body image ranks as one of the top three issues of concern for young
people, in particular young women.

According to a Girlfriend magazine survey of 1000 teenage girls
reported in the Herald Sun of 21 March, almost half of girls aged 13 to 20 knew
someone who had been diagnosed with an eating disorder, and 80 per cent said
they had heard their mothers talk about their bodies in a negative way.

We can all play a role in dispelling the myths associated with
diet and weight loss and its part in contributing to young people’s body image
issues. EDV’s website contains a lot of useful facts about dieting that I would
encourage members, parents and young people to read. The website is at
www.eatingdisorders.org.au. This event has bipartisan support, and I look
forward to members attending later on.

Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — My question is for the Minister for
Children and Early Childhood Development. Why has the minister provided no
capital funding for Victoria’s kindergartens in this year’s state budget,
leaving them entirely reliant on federal and local government funding?

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I
thank the member for her question because it allows me to talk about the $50
million in national partnership money that we released last week for early
childhood facilities in this state. The national partnership carries some
federal funding that is given to us to spend at our discretion. We have
prioritised $50 million of that for capital investment in children’s
infrastructure. Last year we announced a $26 million funding grant round, which
was a record investment in children’s infrastructure in Victoria’s history.

That was a combination of state and federal funding. We announced a further $3.4 million in small capital grants for kindergartens, and now this year $50 million for capital grants to kindergartens.

I am proud to say that in the first 18 months of the Baillieu government we have provided $79.4 million — that is almost $80 million — in funding grants for kindergartens and children’s infrastructure.

Supplementary question

Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — It is interesting that the Minister for
Children and Early Childhood Development is seeking to claim credit for federal
money when she has provided zero dollars of state money for kindergartens in
this year’s state budget.

I remind the minister that the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry report recommended increasing investment in universal services such as kindergartens. Why has the minister ignored this recommendation in this important report?

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — The
Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry report has been well responded
to in this budget. There is more than $330 million in funding to respond to the
inquiry and a lot more work to be done; we understand that. While the former
government was prepared to ignore vulnerable children in this state, we are
investing in those vulnerable children.

Let me just remind the shadow minister, because I am sure she
has read some of these press releases, what the sector has to say about the
Baillieu government’s investment in early childhood in this budget.

In its e-News, Kindergarten Parents Victoria said Victoria’s early childhood services have emerged as major beneficiaries of the 2012-13 budget. In a press release it states:

Kindergarten Parents Victoria has congratulated the Victorian government for
its increased funding to early childhood programs in this year’s state budget.

Playgroup Victoria has congratulated the Baillieu government for funding supported playgroups under the supported parent and playgroup initiative. It said:

Thanks to the advocacy of Minister Wendy Lovell the significant outcomes
supported playgroups achieve for vulnerable children … and their parents can
be maintained in this state.

The Victorian Council of Social Service, in its assessment of the output areas and the real effective increase — –

The PRESIDENT — Order! The member’s time has expired.

On the first page of this report the Department of Treasury and
Finance states that employment has softened over the past year.

This is understating the harsh reality that has seen thousands
of Victorian workers lose their jobs at the same time as this government has no
plan to turn that around. There was no plan to grow the economy in last year’s
budget and no jobs plan, and despite more people becoming unemployed during the
last year, the government still has not learnt its lesson, and this year’s
budget is evidence of that. I could not believe that this year’s state budget
still has no jobs plan for Victoria.

There are no major infrastructure projects in the budget to
create jobs. There are a whole lot of feasibility studies and promises to get
projects done some time in the distant future. We all remember the promise by
Treasurer Kim Wells last year that his government would create between 50 000
and 55 000 jobs a year. This year’s budget exposes its promise as being a cruel
joke on the Victorian people. The budget papers project that employment will
grow by only 0.25 per cent in the coming year.

The midyear financial report forecasts a slashing of 3600
public service jobs, and yesterday’s state budget has included a further 600,
bringing that to a total of 4200 public sector job losses. As I said before,
this is at a time when the private sector is also contracting in the state and
fewer opportunities exist.

The government’s plan to address the state’s deteriorating
financial position is to slash jobs, to cut services and to raid almost $500
million from the WorkCover fund, a fund to which no Victorian government has
ever contributed and from which they are now taking money. It is unbelievable
that at a time when Victoria is shedding jobs the government has decided to raid
the very fund that is designed to benefit workers. We have also seen the
government take a record amount from Victorian people in terms of state taxation
and increase fines by a whopping 15 per cent increase in this budget.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics jobs data for March shows
Victoria’s unemployment rate has increased from 5.5 per cent to 5.8 per cent.

This is significantly higher than the national rate of 5.2 per
cent. The data also shows that 11 500 more Victorians have joined the
unemployment queue and there are now 12 600 fewer jobs across the state. In
relation to our young people, youth unemployment has risen from 20.6 per cent to
23.1 per cent, with our youth unemployment rate heading towards being one of the
highest in the country; even by international standards it is a very high rate.

The pain does not end there. We have recently heard from
Qantas, Alcoa and the finance sector that there may well be thousands more jobs
cut in the coming months. What have we heard from this government about the
reasons for this? The government has failed to accept responsibility and has
blamed everybody else.

It is constantly pointing the finger at the federal government
and talking about the carbon tax, which I remind those opposite that their
leader, the now Premier, was only too prepared to support on 25 November 2009.
The then Leader of the Opposition, Ted Baillieu, is reported in Hansard as
having said:

Carbon transition is one of the biggest issues that will face Victorian
businesses and families over coming years, but I have no doubt that we will in a
few years be living in a carbon-managed economy. We will have reduced our
personal and industrial carbon footprints. I also have no doubt that in the very
same way we have adapted to significant structural and legislative change in the
past, there will come a time when it will simply be the norm. As I said
previously, it will not be scary or a threat but just the way it is done.

…

We want to see carbon emissions reduced. We support an ETS or a CPRS. We
want to see Victorian industry and families protected. We believe the Premier
should release all the advice he has received on the impact on Victorians, and
we believe the federal government should ensure that Australia is not
disadvantaged — –

Hon. D. M. DAVIS (Minister for Ageing) — I thank the member for her question. I
can strongly indicate that the government is concerned about energy costs and
the cost of living for pensioners and indeed the whole community. It is
instructive to remember back to the election.

Labor went to the election with a policy of a discount on
electricity for pensioners for the winter only. This government, in its first
budget, delivered all-year energy concessions for pensioners — a magnificent
and important contribution to the living standards and support — –

Hon. M. P. Pakula — Pat yourself on your back!

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — Well, Mr Pakula, you advocated a
winter-only energy concession. We went for the whole year — all year, 365 days
a year — rather than just one winter quarter. That is a very big — –

Hon. M. P. Pakula interjected.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — You did. We also advocated
free weekend travel on Saturdays and Sundays as that would make a significant
difference for seniors.

Hon. M. P. Pakula — We did it. We implemented it. That was me;
I did it!

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — That is why I am pointing it out to you,
but you did not. We did, I can tell you too.

Hon. M. P. Pakula — No, I did it.

Honourable members interjecting.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — We have done it.

Hon. M. P. Pakula — I did it before the election!

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — But it was not in before the election.

Honourable members interjecting.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — Let me be very clear on this. Labor brought
$2 million of costs every day to the state through the desal plant, money that
would have enabled us to provide even more energy concessions or other worthy
projects for seniors. But let me be also clear on this. The Labor Party supports
the carbon tax, which is going to impose more energy costs, more pressure on
families, on seniors, on a whole range of people. I think it is very important
for the Labor Party in Victoria and for seniors groups to advocate against this
carbon tax that is going to hit seniors very hard. Be clear that health costs
will go up under this Labor carbon tax.

Members will remember that there will be more than $13 million
of extra costs generated for our health sector in Victoria, and that will
directly impact on seniors and others and require greater supplementation from
the state government.

The state government has also increased participation by
seniors from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, with extra
funding in the budget last year. There was also funding for additional eye care
and dental health in the budget last year. As I said, there is the energy
concession, the residential aged-care funding for Geelong, public transport
concessions and, importantly, stamp duty concessions. The stamp duty concessions
will assist those who are older and seeking to downsize their properties with
the transfer of land. These are very significant concessions. This is very
significant support for older Victorians.

Many of those measures bitterly opposed by Labor. Labor was
against the all-year concession on energy in the last — –

Ms Mikakos — That is nonsense.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — You were so; you would not do it. You would
only do one winter quarter, you would not do all year, and you stand condemned
for your failure to actually agree with this all-year concession.

Honourable members interjecting.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — I have to say that the former Treasurer
over there, Mr Lenders, and the former Minister for Water, the member for
Lyndhurst in the Assembly, stand condemned for the costs they forced on every
Victorian who will pay additional costs for the desal plant for 30 years.

These are massive hits against the state budget. I have to say to Ms Mikakos that
it is about time that Labor apologised to Victorians.

Supplementary question

Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — It is absolutely excruciating to listen
to the minister take credit for Labor initiatives like the free weekend public
transport, which was delivered by Mr Pakula. It is time for this government and
this minister to take responsibility and support our senior Victorians. My
supplementary question is: a number of members of the Fair Go for Pensioners
Coalition are visiting the Parliament today. Will the minister and the Premier
agree to meet a delegation of members today to hear their concerns directly?

Hon. D. M. DAVIS (Minister for Ageing) — I am always prepared to meet with
community groups, with seniors.

Mr Lenders — You haven’t yet.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — I have met with many seniors over the last
12 months and before.

Hon. M. P. Pakula interjected.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — I have to say I meet with many seniors and
aged-care centres and a whole range of different groups, so I am very prepared
to meet with community groups, seniors groups. But what I want from Ms Mikakos
is a commitment that she has got it wrong on energy concessions all year — –

Honourable members interjecting.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — All year.

You still have not admitted that you got it wrong in the
election, you still have not admitted that the energy costs that are hitting
Victorians are something that you generated in government — –

Mr Lenders interjected.

Hon. D. M. DAVIS — You generated as Treasurer in the last
government. Of course I will meet with people.

… the Victorian government will continue to work with …

service providers unable to provide the 15 hours by 2013 –

. to facilitate a considered move towards 15 hours …

I know this letter has caused a great deal of angst amongst
kindergartens who are now unsure of whether on not they need to provide 15 hours
and by when.

Can the minister advise the date by which every kindergarten in
Victoria will need to provide 15 hours for four-year olds?

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I
thank the shadow minister for children and young adults for her endorsement the
other day of my stance on kindergartens — she tweeted that I had provided
enough funding for kindergartens to enable them to continue their three-year-old
programs and also to implement 15 hours of four-year-old programs. It was a
glowing endorsement, and I thank her very much. However, I know that more needs
to be done, and I am in constant contact with the kindergarten sector.

Ms MIKAKOS interjected.

Hon. W. A. LOVELL — The shadow minister is obviously not
interested, President. She does this all the time.

She asks a question and then decides to have conversations
around the chamber.

Ms Mikakos interjected.

The PRESIDENT — Order! The minister makes a very valid point.
On frequent occasions Ms Mikakos poses a question and then as the minister
stands to answer she is, let us say in the most charitable sense, adding to her
question. I do not think it is necessary, not to the extent that it occurs. The
minister to continue without assistance.

Hon. W. A. LOVELL — I am in constant contact with the
kindergarten sector. I know that some of them are struggling to implement the 15
hours of kindergarten. This is largely because the former government
signed up to this commonwealth election promise without first doing an
assessment of the capacity of Victoria’s kindergartens to deliver the program,
the need for training of additional teachers and the need to build additional
infrastructure. The former government also signed up to an underfunding of this
promise.

We are working with kindergartens to ensure that they can work
towards delivering 15 hours of kindergarten programs for four-year-olds without
displacing the three-year-old programs, which are highly regarded in this state.
They are unique to Victoria but they are something the federal government does
not seem to want to take into consideration. Obviously the former state
government and the federal government are happy to see the three-year-old
programs go. As we have seen from the Lateline program this week, three-year-old
education is an important part of an early childhood education experience, and
we want to see those programs maintained.

As there are services that are not ready to deliver 15 hours
next year, we have allowed two funding rates: one for a 10.75-hour program, and
one for a 15-hour program for the services that are ready to move to 15 hours.

Supplementary question

Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — I agree that it is important to retain
three-year-old programs as well as offering four-year-old programs, but the
minister has not actually addressed the issue of when kindergartens will need to
comply with this. While the minister can come in here and verbal the things that
I say, this is causing a lot of anxiety. My supplementary question again refers
the minister to her letter, which states, ‘A significant number of kindergarten
service providers are ready to offer 15 hours of kindergarten in 2013′. I ask
the minister to advise me what that number is.

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I
thank the member for her question. We do expect around 60 per cent of service
providers to be providing 15 hours next year, but that still has to be confirmed
by the service providers themselves. As the shadow minister would be aware,
kindergarten programs in this state are delivered through community-provided
facilities by community organisations and local government; they are not
services that are delivered as part of our education system. They are funded by
the state government on a per capita rate but delivered largely by local
government and community providers. We are working with the sector to establish
exactly what that percentage is, and we will continue to support those services
that are not yet ready to deliver 15 hours.

Another problem with the agreement that the former government
signed up to is that a large portion of the funding will come in the last two
years of the agreement — $170 million out of $210 million.

That has made it very difficult to invest in the infrastructure
needed to deliver this policy.

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I
thank the member for her question.

With the type of questions that this member asks, it is no
wonder the Leader of the Opposition and member for Mulgrave in the Assembly,
Daniel Andrews, ignores the new shadow ministers. I have continuously answered
questions that speculate about budget items and about the outcomes of
negotiations with NGOs and the MAV (Municipal Association of Victoria), and my
answer is still the same: these are budget questions, and all budget questions
will be answered on 1 May.

Supplementary question

Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — The minister certainly is building up
expectations, so there may well be some very disappointed stakeholders on budget
day. By way of supplementary, I ask: will the minister commit to providing for
an NGO index that reflects the true cost of doing business in her renegotiated
three-year agreement with the MAV in respect of maternal and child health
funding?

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — My
answer is the same: it is a budget question, and it will be answered on budget
day. I may be raising expectations within the sector, but this shadow minister
is raising a reputation for herself in the sector of being someone who
scaremongers and who is prepared to use families and organisations for her own
political gain. She is gaining a reputation of being a political opportunist
rather than a good shadow minister.

Honourable members interjecting.

Hon. D. M. Davis — On a point of order, President, Mr Pakula
used a phrase which I think was not apposite to the minister.

Hon. M. P. Pakula — The minister did not object.

Hon. D. M. Davis — The minister may not have heard it clearly.
I think Mr Pakula should withdraw that comment. I am not going to repeat the
phrase, but in a gendered context it was completely unacceptable.

The PRESIDENT — Order! I am concerned. Whilst I have no doubt
that the minister, Ms Lovell, did not hear the member — because I did not hear
him and neither did the clerks in front of me — that puts me in a difficult
position in terms of seeking a withdrawal. I dare say that if none of us heard,
then it would not be a Hansard matter either.

Whilst I appreciate what Mr Davis has indicated, I would
counsel members to be careful in their remarks, particularly if they are remarks
that reflect in regard to gender or such like, as there are consequences for
those sorts of remarks.

Now that the minister has provided me with the remark, I recall
that I did hear those words. I presume that they were from Mr Pakula. I think
they are derogatory and should not be part of parliamentary proceedings. As I
said, on this occasion I will proceed on the basis that the remark has not been
picked up anywhere else and that it is only Mr Davis’s fine hearing that has
picked up what I regard as a remark that ought not to have been made and should
not again.

I have to admit that this puts me in some difficulty, because
when it comes to election promises for my electorate there is very little on the
ledger that I can point to and then call on the government to deliver. In
numerous debates I have brought up this issue of the need for equity in terms of
the allocation of budget funding to ensure that electorates such as mine,
Northern Metropolitan Region, are not forgotten about as they have been during
the past 16 months.

I know it would have been very difficult for Mr Ondarchie to
come in here earlier to talk about election promises and have anything to point
to in this regard, because the things that have been delivered in the northern
suburbs are in fact projects initiated by the previous Labor government. These
are projects with which my Labor colleagues have been very proudly associated
over the past few years, such as supporting the extension of the South Morang
rail line, the relocation of the wholesale market to Epping, which will be a
huge employer for the northern suburbs in the future, and many other projects.

It is important that I remind members opposite that I will be
watching very carefully to see that they in fact deliver the northern suburbs’
fair share in this budget and coming budgets, because these suburbs have been
very neglected so far.

Mr Ondarchie — For 11 years; I could not agree more.

Ms MIKAKOS — Particularly in the area of education, Mr
Ondarchie, I found it quite outrageous that the coalition’s election promises
did not list a single school in Northern Metropolitan Region. Not a single
school was on the list of schools to which the Baillieu government was going to
deliver funds.

Mr Leane interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS — That is shameful, Mr Leane.

It is an utter disgrace that in the over 1000 square kilometres
of Northern Metropolitan Region, from the CBD to the outer north, there was not
one school about which this coalition had made a promise. We had a very
extensive list of commitments for schools across the north and a very extensive
list of projects that had already begun. I highlighted one of those last night
during the adjournment debate, the completion of the project at William Ruthven
Secondary College.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT — Order! For all the time I have been in
the chair, members have been listened to in relative silence on both sides, I
might say, and I ask Mr Ondarchie to continue that courtesy and allow the member
to be heard without assistance from him.

Ms MIKAKOS — I realise I am touching a raw nerve here,
because this government has delivered education funding based on postcode rather
than on necessity, and it is embarrassed by that blatant pork-barrelling that
has occurred. We have seen it in both primary and secondary education funding
allocations, but we have also seen it in early childhood education. The
coalition committed to only 4 preschools during the state election campaign out
of the 1755-odd kindergartens in Victoria, and 3 of the 4 were in the one
marginal electorate. Of course government members have got to hang their heads
in shame at their blatant pork-barrelling, but I will continue to advocate on behalf of schools and preschools across Victoria and in the northern suburbs.

We saw that only $208 million was allocated the coalition’s
budget commitment for school capital projects, which is the lowest it has been
in eight years. That is why so many schools in the north are now languishing. I
acknowledge the fact that the three special schools that were already earmarked
for development by the previous Labor government were supported. I do come into
the house and acknowledge when positive things happen, and I fully support those
projects. But other than those there is not a single mainstream school that has
been funded so far, and that is a disgraceful state of affairs. We have
thousands of Victorian schoolchildren in my electorate who are missing out, and
I know there are many in other parts of the state who are missing out too,
because people in other parts of the state contact me and tell me about their
plight as well.

People have to focus on the excuses that the coalition gives
for why this neglect is occurring. In particular we hear time and again drivel
from the coalition about Labor’s supposed big black hole, and I want to come to
that, because I think the coalition is seeking to rewrite history. Under Labor,
Victoria enjoyed a AAA credit rating in each and every year it was in office. In
every budget we delivered a strong operating surplus, including in the year the
Baillieu government took office. The current Premier himself conceded upon his
election that there were ‘no surprises’ in Victoria’s financial position, and he
did so in the Age of 1 December 2010. He said this advice did not threaten any
of the commitments the Baillieu government made during the election campaign. I
have already outlined how deficient those promises were and the fact that none
of them related to my electorate.

We had projects and commitments in place previously which would
have seen, for example, schools in my electorate benefit.

We had the Victorian schools plan, which was a $1.9 billion
Labor initiative to rebuild, renovate or refurbish every single public school in
Victoria by 2016, but the Baillieu government scrapped that commitment. Many
schools are missing out because of the Baillieu government wreaking havoc with
these commitments initiated by Labor.

Labor also made schooling more affordable for Victorian
families by introducing the $300 School Start bonus and providing up to $450 for
eligible families through the education maintenance allowance. The Baillieu
government has introduced means testing, making it harder for families to access
those funds. Labor has always regarded education as its top priority, and it has
a tremendous track record with that. By contrast, $481 million has been ripped
from the Victorian education budget by the Baillieu government. It also walked
away from its promise to make Victorian teachers the best paid in the nation.

I am sure the teachers will do a good job of reminding the
Premier of that promise during the course of this year.

Basically we are seeing a repeat of history. We all remember
well that the Kennett government gutted our education system by sacking 9000
teachers and closing 300 public schools. We have to remind people that this
government has the same DNA as the Kennett government. Many coalition members of
Parliament are the same, and certainly many of the advisers are the same. We see
Jeff Kennett’s fingerprints all over a lot of this. We know that he is secretly
going into the Premier’s office and advising Premier Baillieu about what he
should be doing. He is certainly not shy about offering his opinions through the
media. We are seeing many of the personnel who used to work for the Kennett
government. In fact a former chief of staff, Anna Cronin, now works for Minister
Lovell as her chief of staff.

It is no surprise that Minister Lovell has taken an axe to many
early childhood programs, because clearly this government has the same DNA as
the Kennett government in terms of not showing any respect for education in this
state.

I come now to the second part of the motion which relates to
jobs, an important part of Ms Pulford’s motion. I remind members opposite that
under Labor Victoria drove jobs growth and was seen as a state that had many
opportunities, and that is why many businesses came and invested here during our
time in office. In the last 12 months of the Labor government the Victorian
economy created 100 000 new jobs, and in 2010, 92 per cent of the full-time jobs
created in Australia were created right here in Victoria. Almost 17 months into
the Baillieu government reign Mr Baillieu is yet to release anything that even
resembles the beginning of a jobs plan for Victoria.

In contrast, the Leader of the Opposition and member for
Mulgrave in the Assembly, Daniel Andrews, has announced a jobs and investment
plan for Victoria, and Labor is consulting extensively with industry, unions and
other stakeholders about this plan. We are interested in focusing on the most
important thing we can do for Victorian people — that is, ensure that they have
a job to support their families.

The Treasurer, Kim Wells, promised to deliver 50 000 jobs a
year. Instead in 2011 we saw a loss of 17 000 jobs. We have seen public
investment declining and debt rapidly rising, with nothing to show for it from this government. Unemployment has risen during the Baillieu
government’s first term, so far from 4.9 per cent to 5.8 per cent. My
electorate, which is home to some of the most disadvantaged communities in the
state, is facing the brunt of this. For example, the lower house seat of
Broadmeadows has an unemployment rate of 10.64 per cent — much higher than the
state average and significantly higher than the national average. We have seen
no support from this government for jobs in areas like Broadmeadows. The Ford
plants in both Broadmeadows and Geelong have shed jobs, and people in
manufacturing are getting no support whatsoever from this state government.

Youth unemployment is now sitting at 23.1 per cent. I remind
members opposite that in their own families statement that they delivered last
year — they have forgotten about this year’s version of course — they said
that in December 2010 youth unemployment was around 12.5 per cent. This is not
my figure; this is the coalition’s own figure in its own document.

It said that when it came to office youth unemployment was at
12.5 per cent. It now stands at 23.1 per cent. There are 16 500 fewer jobs
across the state, and more than 30 000 more Victorians have joined the
unemployment queue.

Victorians are losing out under this government. It is only too
happy to help to add further people to the unemployment queue, having announced
that 3600 public service jobs are to go during the course of this year. This is
a time when this state is shedding jobs, and the Baillieu government thinks it
should add to that by cutting even more jobs.

In conclusion I say this. When the Baillieu government claims
to be implementing its election promises, I ask: what is it doing and what has
it actually done for Victorians? It has very little to show other than having
cut back on programs and cut back on services across education and health and
many areas which time does not permit me to highlight in the course of this
debate today.

Many election promises are yet to be delivered. It is difficult
for us to find those election promises given that they have been removed from
the Liberal Party’s website. They are now secret election promises that only
those who had the foresight — like myself — to download soon after the
election are able to locate.

We in the Labor opposition will continue to hold this
government accountable for its promises to ensure that it does deliver on them.
We will make sure that people in my electorate and in those other areas that are
missing out get their fair share. We need to be clear about Labor’s legacy: we
left this government a healthy budget surplus. This government has put the
budget into a precarious position. It is now raiding the Victorian WorkCover
Authority’s funds to prop up its budget, we are continually seeing services
being run into the ground, and there is the threat of services being privatised
in the future.

The budget to be delivered in two weeks time will give the
Baillieu government an opportunity to address some of these issues. I am not
holding my breath, but I call on the government to govern for all Victorians, to
ensure that Victorians receive the services that they expect from their
government and, most importantly, to address the issue of the jobs crisis in
Victoria to ensure that Victorians will be able to have jobs during the course
of this government.

In 2010 the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre (QVWC), in
partnership with the former Brumby government, developed the SeeMe Media
Literacy and Body Image Project.

Central to this project was the development of ‘SeeMe — the
media, my world and me’, an interactive web-based resource with five teaching
and learning modules aligned with the Victorian English curriculum. It was
developed in collaboration with year 8 students and teachers at Melbourne Girls
College, Doncaster Secondary College and East Preston Islamic College.

The website was piloted across four diverse Victorian classrooms in term 4 last year and recently evaluated by the Foundation for young Australians. The results showed that after participating in the program, the majority of students, both male and female, felt significantly happier about their body and were less inclined to think that what they see in the media is representative of real women’s bodies.

The Queen Victoria Women’s Centre intends to conduct statewide
orientation sessions with new SeeMe students and teachers to support the rollout
of this resource across Victorian schools, and I understand that the minister
will soon be launching this material. I certainly hope that that opportunity
will convince him of the need to promote this material more widely.

In addition, Eating Disorders Victoria (EDV) has a range of
resources for staff and students to tackle the issues associated with positive
body image and eating disorders. Funding is required for this project to ensure
equitable access for our state-funded schools and a coordinated implementation
plan.

I call on the Minister for Education to commit funding in this
year’s state budget to support the work of organisations like the QVWC and EDV
to promote the distribution of these written and web-based materials amongst all
Victorian schools.

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I
thank the member for her question and her acknowledgement of the importance of
Victoria’s universal maternal and child health system, a system that the
Baillieu government values and is committed to. As I have told the member
before, I am not about to pre-empt any budget announcements. She will have to
wait until 1 May to see funding commitments in future budgets.

Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — On a supplementary question, under the
previous triennial service agreement between the Victorian government and the
MAV (Municipal Association of Victoria) the cost of the core provision of
maternal and child health services was shared equally between councils and the
state government. Given the continual cost shifting we have seen in recent times
from this government to local councils, does the government intend to retain the
50-50 split of costs regarding maternal and child health funding?

Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I
really thank the shadow minister for children and young adults for the question
because when I was the shadow Minister for Children and Early Childhood
Development and talking to the MAV I was told how the cost shifting had occurred
under the Brumby government.

I was told yes, maternal and child health in the past had been
funded 50-50, but funding from the state government had declined until it got to
about 46-54. We are currently going through a process of negotiating a further
contract with the MAV, and we will announce the results of that when that
contract is completed.

Currently premiums paid by employers to the fund are used to
benefit injured workers and prevent workplace injury and disease. Under the
proposed changes, this government will be able to take money from the fund to
fill the gaping holes in its budget. The budget update released on 15 December
last year states that this raid on WorkCover funds will take approximately
$471.5 million over four years. It is important to note that the legislation
before us does not limit payments to this figure, yet despite the clear and
obvious disadvantage to Victorians as a result, this government is seeking to
push ahead with this proposal.

The Labor opposition has been vocal in its criticism of this
legislation because it believes the bill will inevitably result in either higher
premiums for businesses or reduced benefits for workers, or both.

It is absolutely astonishing that at a time when Victoria is
losing jobs this government would seek to bring in legislation that is antijob
creation and is in fact a desperate attempt at grabbing cash. The practical
effect of this cash grab will be fewer jobs because premiums will be higher,
deterring more and more Victorian businesses from hiring. This is coming at a
time when Victoria’s unemployment rate has increased to 5.4 per cent in the
month of February, which is significantly higher than the national average of
5.2 per cent. We currently have 8200 more Victorians who have joined the
unemployment queue, and there are more than 12 600 less jobs across Victoria.
This has been caused by a government that has no plans to grow the economy, no
strategy to create jobs and no vision for our state.

Whilst the Leader of the Opposition and member for Mulgrave in
the Assembly announced a jobs and investment plan last week and invited the
Victorian community to have a say around that jobs plan, we are still waiting
for the Baillieu government to develop its own jobs plan. In fact the Minister
for Employment and Industrial Relations has been critical of Labor’s jobs plan
at the same time as there is an absolute vacuum in place of this government’s
policy on this issue.

We all know that a strong economy does not appear magically and
that jobs growth does not happen by accident. We need a government that is
prepared to do the hard work to boost business confidence and attract
investment, and a government that is willing to govern. We have not seen that
from the Baillieu government. This is a government that is missing in action.
The Victorian public is becoming increasingly frustrated by this government
which is allowing jobs to be lost every week and has absolutely no idea about
how to turn that around.

By contrast, Labor has a proud record on both jobs creation and
WorkCover. In relation to WorkCover, the previous government reduced WorkCover
premiums six times, bringing them to historic lows. It substantially improved
benefits for injured workers while at the same time significantly reducing
workplace accidents. It also implemented a $90 million reform package to boost
support for Victoria’s injured workers and families dealing with a tragedy of a
workplace death.

The grave concerns we have with this bill are not only held by
members the Labor opposition; they are also shared by industry. In the Age of 20
December last year Tim Piper from the Australian Industry Group was quoted as
saying:

What it is more likely to do is reduce the innovative opportunities
WorkCover has to consider injury prevention activities …

In addition, we have heard concerns expressed by the former
chairman of the Victorian WorkCover Authority, James MacKenzie, who made a
number of observations about this on 28 February this year in an opinion piece
in the Australian Financial Review. He said that the Baillieu government either
does not understand or simply does not care about the consequences of this cash
grab. He described Victoria as having one of the best workers compensation
schemes in the country and said that the occupational health and safety regime
in Australia was arguably the best in the world. He called our record in this
area enviable, yet the Baillieu government, with its misguided policy, is
threatening to pull apart a scheme that is fully funded and strip $500 million
from a fund that no Victorian government has ever contributed to.

In my view the Baillieu government is effectively a sheep in
wolf’s clothing. It may not be called the Kennett government, but for all
intents and purposes it is the Kennett government. I refer members to a
quote from the Victorian secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Cesar
Melham, who was quoted in a media release dated 15 March of this year as having
said:

It feels awfully like a re-run of the Kennett years when benefits for
injured workers were slashed, common-law claims were eliminated and premiums
shot up …

That is what we are seeing at the moment. My fear is that this
is just a prelude of what is yet to come. What is yet to come is an attack on
workers’ benefits under the WorkCover scheme.

We have to remember, and we will constantly remind government
members, that Labor left behind a AAA rated economy and a budget in surplus.

Despite what government members may wish to claim, Mr Lenders
was an excellent Treasurer who delivered that budget surplus and made sure that
every single year that Labor was in government we had a budget surplus. What we
have seen from the Baillieu government is a fiscally inept government that
believes that raiding WorkCover for more funds is a magical solution for
delivering on its promises. This government seems to believe that it has found
in the WorkCover authority the money tree that will provide it with the funds it
requires to deliver on its commitments. This will come at the expense of the
Victorian public and in particular Victorian workers. For those reasons, I
strongly oppose this bill.

Just like the four bills before it, this bill brings us no closer to a fully fledged, operational IBAC, an IBAC, I remind members of the government, that they promised would be up and working by 1 July last year.

After 16 months and five pieces of legislation we still do not know how the IBAC will operate, who will head it up or when it will begin doing its work.

These are definitely issues of great concern to the opposition, and it has been disappointing that not much light has been shed in relation to
these important issues.

The bill aims to amend the Victorian Inspectorate Act 2011 to
provide the Victorian Inspectorate with additional duties and powers which are
intended to improve the IBAC’s capacity to perform statutory duties and
functions.

The bill also seeks to amend the purpose of the Victorian
Inspectorate to include responsibility for oversight of the public interest
monitors (PIMs), including a capacity to inspect and audit PIM records, enter
PIM premises, report to the minister on the functions of the PIM and any
contraventions by the PIM. The bill also seeks to introduce consequential
amendments to the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1958 to enable
Victorian Inspectorate officers to witness statutory declarations.

Obviously a lot of technical provisions are associated with a
bill such as this, and I do not propose to go through them in any great detail.
However, I point out that the Victorian Inspectorate will have the power to hold
an inquiry for the purpose of an investigation which will include a capacity to
hold an examination, to enter and search IBAC premises and to inspect, seize and
copy any document or thing. Provisions in the bill relate to examinations being
held in private.

There is a qualified right to legal representation and some
provisions relating to conflicts and issues around interpreters. There are
powers to summons witnesses to attend and give evidence, and entry, search and
seizure powers.

A point I want to make in relation to the technical provisions
of the bill is that there are a lot of confidentiality provisions regarding the
operations of the Victorian Inspectorate. Victorian Inspectorate officers, both
present and former, will only be able to divulge information for the purposes of
performing their duties, a prosecution disciplinary action following an
investigation or making recommendations to IBAC or other bodies for further
investigative or enforcement action.

There are also a range of provisions regarding confidentiality
notices.

During an investigation the Victorian Inspectorate can issue
confidentiality notices specifying restricted matters in relation to the
investigation of a person who is not a Victorian Inspectorate officer if it is
considered by the inspectorate on reasonable grounds that disclosure would
prejudice an investigation, the safety or reputation of a person or the fair
trial of a person charged or to be charged with an offence. There are a lot of
restrictions in relation to disclosure and confidentiality in this legislation.

Opposition members have concerns around a lot of the secrecy
that has surrounded the consultation process that has led to this legislation
being drafted. Whilst we do not oppose this bill, we do have concerns about the
fact that we are now being asked to consider the powers and functions of a body
that will eventually oversee the IBAC, yet we still do not know the totality of
the powers and functions of the IBAC itself.

As I have said, the government has taken a piecemeal approach
– and I would argue a completely botched approach — to implementing the IBAC,
because we have got only part of the information in considering the merits of
this legislation this evening.

I note that in an article published in the Age of 12 March
entitled ‘Baillieu suppresses key report on corruption commission’ there is a
reference to the advisory committee panel set up to report on and advise the
Baillieu government on IBAC’s most controversial aspects. It was conducted by a
panel of four well-qualified and distinguished Victorians, including the chair
of the committee, Stephen Charles, QC; retired judge, Gordon Lewis; a member of
the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation, Gail Owen; and Peter
Harmsworth, the chair of the State Services Authority. That report could quite
clearly shed some light on the issues the coalition may have faced in setting up
this body, but the article makes it very clear:

The government has confirmed to the Age the report will never be made public
…

If this report was disclosed, it could clarify stakeholders’
views and opinions about the IBAC’s operations. It could provide some insight
into the design of the IBAC framework, yet it has been buried by the government.

This brings me to the heart of the concern that I and the
opposition have, and that is it is greatly ironic for a government to bury a
report that goes to the core of public integrity at the same time as introducing
a piece of legislation that government members claim will enhance that public
integrity. This is the same government that came into this place promising an
open and accountable government at all times. It was going to be a transparent
government, a government with nothing to hide, yet at every opportunity it is
seeking to hide reports that would cast some light on its internal workings.

We do not know if stakeholder views have fed into the
development of this legislation, because, as I said, the report will never be
made public.

Opposition members are concerned about the shortfalls in this
government’s integrity regime, and that is why we will continue to hold this
government to account for its promises made to the Victorian public. The fact is
that the government sought to introduce a package of integrity measures around
IBAC and the other associated bodies, yet it is not seeking to make this report
public. The Accountability Round Table spokesperson, Emeritus Professor David
Yencken, said in the Age of 12 March:

The secrecy shrouding every aspect of the consultation carried out by the
government is a matter of great concern.

It is of concern that a lot of the information about the
Baillieu government’s most touted and hyped election promise relating to the
establishment of the IBAC has been kept secret and will be kept secret into the
future. As I said at the outset, it is concerning that this legislation is being
introduced in a piecemeal fashion. We do not have the benefit of seeing the
totality of the legislation in considering how the powers of this body will fit
in and work with the powers of the IBAC. All we can do is wait for further
legislation to be introduced to put all the jigsaw puzzle pieces together. It is
disappointing, and if this is the best the government can do when it promises
open and accountable government, then the government is incompetent and
dishonest in its approach to the Victorian public.

The proceeds from the sale of the old Lakeside Secondary College could and should go towards new buildings at William Ruthven Secondary College. Darebin City Council has also recently thrown its support behind this proposition, voting at its last council meeting to lobby both the Premier and Minister Dixon. Of course this school is just one of many in my electorate to miss out on funding in last year’s state budget, and it is time that the issue was addressed.

The Baillieu government’s significant lack of investment in education is bitterly disappointing for the thousands of Victorian government schoolchildren in the northern suburbs.

This is why it is more important than ever that any underutilised educational facilities or land within my region be available for community use or, if that is not possible, that the proceeds be redirected to other schools in the area.

The City of Whittlesea has also sought a commitment from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in relation to the Peter Lalor Vocational College, Lalor Park Primary School and the former Mernda Primary School. These three sites have the potential to become vibrant community precincts, enabling social, educational and recreational outcomes for local communities situated in Melbourne’s growing northern corridor.

I therefore call on the Minister for Education to ensure that educational facilities in the north are in fact used for the north. I am specifically seeking that proceeds of the sale of the former Lakeside Secondary College site be allocated for the completion and rebuilding of William Ruthven Secondary College and that surplus education land in my electorate be considered for possible social, educational or recreational use.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool. ]]> http://www.jennymikakos.com.au/news-article/apply-for-northern-youth-voice/feed/ 0 http://www.jennymikakos.com.au/news-article/chaldean-babylonian-new-year-7312/ http://www.jennymikakos.com.au/news-article/chaldean-babylonian-new-year-7312/#comments Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:47:44 +0000 editor http://www.jennymikakos.com.au/?post_type=news&p=711 Continue reading →]]> I also had the pleasure of attending the Chaldean Babylonian New Year Festival on
Sunday 1 April 2012 at the Coburg Lake Reserve which celebrated the 7312
Babylonian Year, which originated from the Chaldean Babylonians in the land of
Mesopotamia.  This festival also known as the Akitu Festival marks the arrival of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and dates back to Ancient Mesopotamia.  The festival was filled with music, costumes and dances showcasing the Chaldean culture.

I briefly want to come to the issue of funding, because as we
have so many people on the waiting list for organ transplants it is important
that there is adequate resourcing of our health system. The recommendations also
relate to the need for increased resources, and I was disappointed that there
was a minority report in relation to this chapter.

I want to conclude by thanking all those individuals and
organisations who made submissions to the committee. It was very useful and
valuable evidence to us. I also wish to thank the secretariat staff for their
support in assisting us in concluding this report. I hope the government takes up the recommendations in the report; they are critical to so many Victorian families.

In November last year I met with cleaners from Epping Plaza in
my electorate, and they gave me firsthand accounts of their meagre working
conditions. I support United Voice’s Clean Start campaign for a livable wage,
job security and a fair and safe workload for Australia’s shopping centre
cleaners working for Spotless, one of Australia’s biggest retail cleaners.

According to Mission Australia’s national survey of young
Australians aged 11 to 24 conducted last year, body image ranked as one of the
top three issues of concern for young people nationally and in Victoria. In
2011, 33.2 per cent of young Victorians considered body image as their top
personal concern. This issue has been increasing as an issue of concern over the
last five years this survey has been conducted.

This was the second most concerning issue for young people aged
20 to 24 years, and it was the issue of most concern to Victorian females.

According to a Girlfriend magazine survey of 1000 teenage girls
reported in the Herald Sun of 21 March:

More than half of girls believe losing weight would make them feel better
about their appearance.

Some young people are resorting to dieting and developing
eating disorders. According to the Girlfriend magazine survey, 50 per cent
skipped meals, 45 per cent had been on a diet, 35 per cent had cut out a food
group and 19 per cent — that is one in five — admitted to vomiting after
eating. Almost half of girls aged 13 to 20 years knew someone who had been
diagnosed with an eating disorder, and 80 per cent said that they had heard
their mothers talk about their bodies in a negative way.

In 2005 the Bracks and Brumby governments initiated a
parliamentary inquiry into the effects of negative body image on young people.
Young people reported how important this issue was to them. The previous Labor
government responded by committing $2.1 million over the four years to implement
solutions through the Teenagers Go for your life positive body image strategy.
This was a comprehensive strategy that was the first of its kind in Australia
and was developed to implement the recommendations arising from the inquiry.
Some of the initiatives included community awareness in regional and
metropolitan Victoria, media and industry awareness partnerships, a voluntary
code of conduct on body image for the advertising industry and a grants program.
I understand that the federal government has also initiated a range of similar
programs.

There has been no new funding allocated by the Baillieu
government to tackle body image issues. I am concerned that the positive body
image strategy has not been supported with continued funding by this government.

There is no single solution to this issue; it is a complex
issue. However, I am concerned at the silence from the Minister for Youth
Affairs on this important issue. I call on the minister to allocate funding in
this year’s state budget to support programs that promote a positive body image
among our youth.

On Monday I attended the Our Time supported playgroup in
Reservoir. The Supported Playgroups and Parents Group Initiative was announced
by the former Labor government in the 2005-06 A Fairer Victoria strategy as a
four-year package. It was initially rolled out to 14 municipalities, where Best
Start sites were established, and in 2008-09 the Labor government committed
funding for a further 15 municipalities.

The funding of these 15 sites is coming to an end this
financial year. One of these sites is in my local government area of Darebin,
where the Our Time playgroup is situated.

The recent Report of the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable
Children Inquiry also recognised the significant role of both community and
supported playgroups in supporting families in Victoria and recommended that the
Baillieu government:

Increase investment and appropriate infrastructure in universal services
including … community playgroups, to communities that have the highest
concentration of vulnerable children and families …

I understand that Playgroup Victoria supports the inquiry’s
recommendation.

The Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development needs
to commit to implementing the recommendations in the Protecting Victoria’s
Vulnerable Children Inquiry report that relate to her portfolio, and it is
disappointing that she has failed to do so so far.

Today the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations did
not know how much young workers are paid, including the hourly minimum rate for
18-year-olds.

The Minister for Youth Affairs has been unable to inform the
Parliament what the youth unemployment rate is. There have been situations where
ministers of the Crown have been unable to reassure Victorians that they
actually have a plan for jobs growth in this state. The government has proposed
the sacking of 3600 workers from the Victorian public service, creating
difficulties for many thousands of families in our state as well as taking away
services that support Victorian families across many portfolio areas.

In terms of cost of living pressures, this government has put
up motor vehicle registration fees by $35 and there have been cuts to important
services such as occasional child care. I plan to speak a fair bit on occasional
child care today. I put on record how disappointing it is that this government
during its term of office has disadvantaged 9000 families who rely on the Take a
Break occasional child-care program.

As a consequence of the government withdrawing funding that we
used to provide, 71 per cent of occasional child-care services have increased
their fees — some have increased their fees by a rate as high as 45 per cent —
and 16 per cent of providers have cut their hours. This is data that I have
sourced from the Association of Neighbourhood Houses and Learning Centres, which
has surveyed its members recently. This data is based on what its members told
the association about the impacts of cuts to that program on Victorian families.

In addition, six centres have closed their child-care programs.
Staff from another six centres — this could possibly be more — have said they
will close their programs soon. I draw this to Mrs Petrovich’s attention,
because this is having a disproportionate impact on regional communities.
Regional communities do not have alternatives.

Unless this issue is addressed — the federal government is
doing its part to address this issue — Victorian families are going to have
fewer options in terms of occasional child-care placements in regional
communities.

What we have seen from the financial report is a government
that is raiding the WorkCover Authority and seeking to prop up its budget
whichever way it can, but cutting important services that Victorian families
rely on such as child care and also many other services in the education sector
and our health system. The most important thing that Victorian families would be
looking to this government for is some direction about growing the economy and
creating more jobs in the state. Despite the recent Herald Sun editorial that
was headed ‘Wake up Ted, we need you’, we are still waiting on Mr Baillieu to
take action.

Over the past four years Project Respect has received $60 000 a
year from the Department of Justice and $20 000 from the Victorian Multicultural
Commission.

It has been brought to my attention that state government
funding for this organisation ran out two weeks ago. Project Respect is a
not-for-profit organisation that specialises in providing support to victims of
trafficking for prostitution through outreach programs, and demand for its
services have been continuously increasing. I got to know a lot about this
organisation when it provided evidence to the previous Parliament’s Drugs and
Crime Prevention Committee inquiry into people trafficking for sex work, in
which the committee noted that it was important for organisations such as
Project Respect to ‘be encouraged to extend their outreach training and
awareness programs throughout the state and to as many different types of groups
as possible’. I point out that this was a bipartisan recommendation through that
report, which the government had supported in principle when it responded to the
report.

The report also talked about how organisations such as Project
Respect should be included in any consultative advisory bodies that might be
established to advise government on these issues. Recommendation 17 specifically
states that non-government organisations that support trafficked women should
‘be provided with additional resources to continue and extend their involvement
in the training of police, municipal officers, sex industry regulators and other
relevant persons’.

I am very concerned that despite having written to Minister
Wooldridge about this organisation in the past — and also to Minister O’Brien
and the Minister for Police and Emergency Services — the funding has
nonetheless run out. I am calling on the minister to urgently reinstate funding
for Project Respect to allow it to continue to provide support for women in the
sex industry, including those who are trafficked to Australia.

I particularly draw the minister’s attention to the  much-vaunted Sex Work and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2011, which the government brought to this Parliament only last year, and the fact that the government said in its media release on 8 December:

Sex trafficking, slavery and sexual servitude are heinous crimes which are
strongly condemned by this government.

I ask the government to make a response to that commitment and
actually put some funding into this organisation.

In 1994 Jim co-founded the Reach Foundation, recognising that
all too often greatness in young people is hidden behind fear, anger or hurt. He
believed that every young person should have the support and self-belief they
need to fulfil their potential. Reach achieves this by creating safe and
supportive places where teenagers can share their stories and experiences
honestly. Every year his charity runs programs for more than 60 000 young
Australians in more than 580 metropolitan and regional schools across the
country.

Jim was recognised for his achievements with Reach and in the
community through many awards, including Melburnian of the Year in 2010, a Medal
of the Order of Australia, a Churchill Fellowship in 2007 and Victorian of the
Year in 2001 and 2003. Jim also worked on a number of government advisory
bodies, including the 1997 Victorian government’s suicide task force and the
federal Minister for Youth’s youth advisory consultative committee. His most
extraordinary football achievements included playing for the Melbourne Football
Club in 264 games between 1987 and 1998. He was inducted into the AFL Hall of
Fame in 2003, was the 1991 Brownlow medallist and became the president of the
Melbourne Football Club in 2008.

Jim Stynes showed great courage during his protracted illness
and was an inspiration to many cancer sufferers. I wish to express my sincere
condolences to Jim’s family — his wife, Samantha, and his two children, Matisse
and Tiernan.

He was a remarkable man who inspired many, and I am sure he
will be sadly missed.

I note that it was only earlier today that the Leader of the
Government gave notice that the bill would be, at the conclusion of the
second-reading debate, referred to the Legal and Social Issues Legislation
Committee, of which I am a member. The reasons for doing so are not clear;
however, as a member of that committee I certainly welcome the opportunity to
finally have a piece of legislation for this committee to consider — after 15
months of the Baillieu government and this upper house legislation committee
being in operation. We finally have a piece of legislation to consider. I do
wonder, however, whether there is some drafting flaw in the bill that has caused
the government to refer the bill to the committee.

I particularly raise that issue in light of the fact that the
bill was brought to the Parliament four months ago. It was introduced in the
Legislative Assembly on 8 November 2011.

If there had been a problem with the bill, there would have
been ample opportunity for the government to have addressed that issue through
proposing amendments in the Legislative Assembly. The bill has passed through
the lower house, and it is now being debated in the Legislative Council.

I look forward to getting some further clarification as to the
reasons why this bill is going to be sent to the committee, particularly, as I
understand, as the Law Institute of Victoria has not raised any objections to
the changes proposed in the bill. That was the advice the opposition received at
the departmental briefing on this bill. As I understand it the law institute’s
position, which was expressed in 2009 to the Department of Justice, was that it
did not believe there was any practical purpose being served by the adoption of
the convention.

If those at the institute think there is no purpose being
served in this respect, it would be interesting to know what argument would be
put in relation to why this bill should go to the Standing Committee on Legal
and Social Issues Legislation Committee. I certainly will be seeking some clarification of those reasons from the  government when the bill is discussed in the committee. I will be very keen to seek the views of the law institute and other legal professionals about the
matter.

As I understand it, this is a relatively straightforward bill.
It is significant, because wills have been a fundamental part of our legal
landscape in the English legal system for centuries and millennia. The oldest
known will in the world belonged to an Egyptian man and dates back to 2600 BC. I
understand from the knowledgeable authoritative source known as Wikipedia that
the longest ever will was over 1000 pages long and the shortest was only 3 words
long. Wikipedia says that the shortest known legal wills are those of Bimla
Rishi of Delhi, India, who said ‘All to son’, and Karl Tausch of Germany, who
said in his will, ‘All to wife’.

Both of those wills contained only three words.

Writing those three words is a pretty innovative way to dispose
of your assets after your death. It usually takes a few more words than that,
and during my time as a legal practitioner I had the opportunity to assist
clients to prepare their wills. They are very important documents, because they
provide an opportunity for people to plan for the future and make their wishes
clear as to the transfer or disposal of one’s property upon their death.

The issues which have given rise to the introduction of this
bill to this Parliament are about the multicultural nature of our nation. Those
issues are particularly relevant to our state of Victoria, which has a large
multicultural community with over 40 per cent of our residents either having
been born overseas or having at least one parent who was born overseas. All of
us have very diverse electorates which have people from many different
backgrounds, faiths and languages. My electorate of Northern Metropolitan Region
is particularly diverse.

Many people who have migrated to Australia have decided to call
Victoria home; however, they still have strong connections with their homelands,
which include the ownership of land and other assets. For these Victorians to
own an overseas property may not have impact on their day-to-day lives, but it
may become a burden to them when they are seeking to create a will. At the
moment many of these individuals would have legal expenses and would have to
travel overseas, which is time consuming, in order to establish a separate will
for the disposal of those assets. That may be financially impossible for many.

In response to this issue the International Institute for the
Unification of Private Law, also known as UNIDROIT, developed an international
convention on wills which was signed in Washington, DC, in 1973. As the
Attorney-General outlined in the second-reading speech:

UNIDROIT …

is an intergovernmental organisation that formulates uniform law instruments
aimed at harmonising and coordinating private laws between countries.

The convention aims to eliminate the issues that may arise when
establishing a will across international borders, including where a person
making a will wishes to deal with the disposal of assets in another country or
when a person seeking to make a will has as their residence a country which is
different to the country in which the will is to be executed. According to the
International Institute for the Unification of Private Law there are currently
around 20 signatories to this convention, which include Belgium, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Cyprus, Ecuador, France, Italy, Libya, Nigeria, Portugal and
Slovenia. It is also in force in a number of Canadian states.

Under our Australian constitution becoming a signatory to an
international convention does not automatically mean that it becomes part of our
domestic law, which is why this bill is before us. In July 2010 the decision was
made by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) to formally accede to
this convention. It is necessary for each of the states and territories to
formally adopt the provisions of that convention into state law. It was agreed
at that SCAG meeting that all Australian jurisdictions would adopt this uniform
law as their local law. Once this bill has passed in Victoria and other
jurisdictions have passed their bills, we will be able to formally recognise
international wills across Australian jurisdictions.

The bill amends the Wills Act 1997 to align Victorian law, and
thus wills made under that act, with the uniform law in the convention. The bill
includes the convention as a schedule to this bill. In particular, article 1 of
the uniform law is a key provision.

It provides that, irrespective of the place where a will is
made, the location of the assets and the nationality, domicile or residence of
the testator of the will, if it is made in the form of an international will
complying with the provisions contained in this uniform law, the will is valid.
It goes on to list a range of provisions which are very similar to those
applying to making valid domestic wills — for example, the will needs to be
made in writing, be properly witnessed et cetera. There are, however, some
differences between what is required for making valid domestic and what is
required for making international wills, and I will come to those in a moment.

The proclamation and commencement of this bill
will occur after the convention has come into force — that is, as I understand
it, six months after Australia accedes to the convention. Because every
jurisdiction in the country needs to pass equivalent laws on this convention or
uniform law, there is the real possibility that the provisions of this bill may
not come into force for some time yet. However, once it comes into force, it
will be very useful.

Clause 5 of the bill inserts a new division into the Wills Act,
titled ‘International wills’, which includes a new section 19D. This proposed
section outlines that the legal requirements for witnesses to wills, now
including international wills, remain those as determined by Victorian law. The
issues around the capacity of the will-maker, or testator, remain the same as
they are under Victorian law. Issues to do with the construction of the terms of
a will also are not changed. They continue to be matters that are dealt with by
existing Victorian law.

The main difference between the making of a will under
Victorian law and the making of an international will comes as a result of new
section 19C, headed ‘Persons authorised to act in connection with international
wills’. This new section specifies that international will-makers must also
declare the will in the presence of an authorised person who must be a legal
practitioner or a public notary. It also requires this authorised person to
attach to the will a certificate verifying that all proper formalities have been
undertaken in relation to its construction.

In conclusion, the opposition does not oppose this bill. As I
said, it is part of a process that commenced whilst Labor was still in
government. Once all the other jurisdictions have passed the uniform law and
signed up to it in their respective parliaments, international wills will have
legal validity under Victorian law and be recognised as a valid form of will by
our courts and the courts of other states that will be party to this convention.

It will be an important reform once it is adopted. I certainly
look forward to hearing in the Legal and Social Issues Legislation Committee
whether there are concerns that stakeholders have about this bill, because I am
not aware of any at this point in time.

“The Government has refused to guarantee funding for the Supported Playgroup and Parents Initiative, which funds playgroups in Darebin and is set to run out of funding in June this year,” Ms Mikakos said.

 “This is despite this type of program having been identified by the recent child protection inquiry as a key part of supporting vulnerable families across Victoria.

 “The Government can’t be taken seriously about tackling child welfare issues if it cuts programs that are designed to improve parenting skills, provide structured activities and community connectedness for at-risk families.

 “If the Government doesn’t renew funding for the Supported Playgroup and Parents Initiative, the playgroup in Darebin will be forced to shut down, and the dozens of families who participate will lose a vital service.”

 Ms Mikakos said the report recommended an increase in funding to community playgroups particularly in areas with high concentration of vulnerable children and families.

 “For Mr Baillieu to walk away from funding the Supported Playgroup and Parents Initiative following this recommendation demonstrates that Mr Baillieu is more interested in saving money than helping vulnerable families,” Ms Mikakos said.

 Visiting the ‘Our Time’ supported playgroup in Reservoir, Ms Mikakos said playgroups are a vital platform for children 0-3 years of age and their families.

 “Vulnerable families rely on the support they receive through programs like the ‘Our Time’ supported playgroup,” she said.

 “It defies logic that Mr Baillieu would ignore the expert advice he commissioned to save a few dollars.

 “Far from addressing the issues with the child protection system, Mr Baillieu seems intent on making them worse,” Ms Mikakos said.

 This week, Victoria is celebrating National Playgroup Week. There are over 25,000 families and 40,000 children each week who attend playgroups in Victoria.

 “Playgroups are the quiet achiever in our community. They prepare children for success in kindergarten and provide the very foundations for their success in schools.

 “By cutting funding for the Supported Playgroup and Parents Initiative, the Baillieu Government is taking away support from those who need it most.”

Over the years I have got to know members of this organisation
quite well, and I commend them for the time and effort they put into organising
this annual event. It was also a pleasure to watch second-generation
Greek-Australians playing a huge role in the lead-up to this event and taking so
much pride in preserving and promoting their cultural heritage.

I would like to congratulate the president of Aristotelis, Mr Sarakinis, and all
the other committee members and volunteers for their hard work. I wish the group
every success in the future.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of disability,
ageing and carers, which was last conducted in 2009, found that there were 703
100 carers in Victoria, or 13 per cent of the Victorian population, of which 194
100, or 28 per cent, were primary carers. It also found that of those primary
carers 138 000 were women — that is, 71 per cent of the total number of primary
carers. I will explain the distinction made by the ABS in relation to a carer
and a primary carer. The ABS defines a carer as:

a person of any age who provides informal assistance, in terms of help or
supervision, to a person with disability, or long-term medical condition, or an
older person aged 60 years

or over. The assistance must be ongoing or likely to be ongoing for at least six
months.

It defines a primary carer as:

a person who provides the most informal assistance, in terms of help or
supervision, to a person with one or more disabilities. The assistance has to be
ongoing, or likely to be ongoing, for at least six months and be provided for
one or more core activities (communication; mobility; and self care).

The economic contribution that carers make to our society is
absolutely enormous, and I think if those carers were not there to support their
loved ones, the cost to the community and to governments would be absolutely
enormous.

A report produced in 2010 by Access Economics titled The
Economic Value of Informal Care in 2010 estimated that the annual replacement
value of informal care provided just in that year was over $40.9 billion, with
carers providing 1.32 billion hours of unpaid care in 2010. This is a huge
contribution that carers are making, and I think it is important that these
unsung heroes of our community are recognised. They do deserve all of our
thanks.

As a member of Parliament over the years I have had the
opportunity to meet many families with a family member who has a disability, or
it might be an elderly person who might require additional support. I have
absolute admiration for these people. They work in an absolutely selfless way
and devote huge numbers of hours to the task of caring for those loved ones, and
I do not think it is possible to do justice to the contribution that they make.
I know this issue is very dear to your heart, Acting President, and it is very
dear to many of us, because many of us know people who are carers.

I would just like to place on record my thanks to them for the
contribution they make on a daily basis. They are people who make many
sacrifices. Being a carer means they are less able to work in paid employment.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics survey on caring in the community, which I
referred to earlier, found that being a primary carer can impact on a person’s
ability to participate in the workforce.

Foster carers and kinship carers care for some of the most
challenging and vulnerable young people in our community. Carers support those
who have a severe medical condition or a chronic illness, those with a
disability and the elderly or frail members of our community, some of whom may
be in palliative care. The circumstances in which people find themselves being
carers can be very broad in nature.

Carers might be young or old and the person they are supporting
might be young or old, and it is important to record the breadth of experiences
that people are facing in supporting people to live to their fullest, to retain
their dignity and to remain active members of our community.

As I said, a carer’s tasks can involve an enormous contribution
and enormous sacrifices, such as those relating to career, study, health,
finances and relationships, many of which are put on hold, sometimes
indefinitely. In reading the parliamentary library’s research brief on this bill
– and I commend the library for the brief as I thought it was — –

Mrs Coote — Excellent.

Ms MIKAKOS — I agree, Mrs Coote, it is an excellent
brief. It includes information about the number of hours that carers put in.

I was quite astounded to read that there are 69 600 Victorians,
or 35.9 per cent of primary carers, who spend over 40 hours a week providing
care. That is equivalent to a full-time job providing care to a loved one. We
all know from talking to people who are in those circumstances that the level of
care can be quite complex. Supporting someone who is elderly or frail or who has
a disability can be a very difficult task, and there can be extremely
challenging circumstances. Just recently a family who had a very severely
autistic child came to see me. He had severe behavioural issues, and that was
very challenging for the family. The strain was written all over the mother’s
face, but she was doing an absolutely fantastic job in supporting her son.

This is an important bill in that it provides recognition of
the role of carers. I will speak more about the bill in a moment, but I believe
it builds upon some existing things that have already been put in place in
relation to supporting carers.

The previous government developed a Victorian Carer Card
program, which was designed to alleviate some of the pressures on carers,
particularly financial pressures, by providing discounts and benefits from over
700 businesses and government venues. We also provided additional accommodation
and respite places. I think this is a very important area, and I hope the
government will continue to provide additional respite because the need and
demand is just so enormous.

I was really pleased that whilst we were in government we were
able to provide funding for some additional respite places in one of my local
community organisations, AGAPI Care, which has a respite centre in Preston that
provides respite for multicultural families, particularly families from the
Greek community. I see many parents who are becoming elderly themselves and who
are finding it increasingly difficult to look after children who are now adults
and who have severe disabilities. They need to be able to place their children into respite and have that additional level of support.

The previous government also introduced the first-ever
Victorian charter supporting people in care relationships. This charter
articulates a carer’s rights and responsibilities and seeks to protect their
rights and the rights of those they care for by ensuring that all care
relationships are recognised, respected and supported. I understand that
following the passage of this bill the charter will be updated to reflect the
new legislation, and I particularly welcome that. The charter’s aim is also to
support people in care relationships, and I think it is important to view this
bill in the context of things that are already in place. The bill provides
further symbolic recognition of the role that carers play in our community.

The main purposes of the bill, as stated in the purposes
clause, are to:

(a) recognise, promote and value the role of people in care
relationships; and

(b) recognise the different needs of persons in care
relationships; and

(c) support and recognise that care relationships bring
benefits to the persons in the care relationship and to the community; and

(d) enact care relationship principles to promote understanding
of the significance of care relationships.

The bill contains broad definitions of carers and care
relationships.

For the purposes of the bill a person is deemed to be in a care
relationship if he or she provides another person with care or receives care
from another person because one of the persons in the relationship has a
disability, is old, has a mental illness or has an ongoing medical condition,
including a terminal or chronic illness or dementia.

As shadow minister for seniors and ageing, I note that we have
an increasingly ageing population. We now have baby boomers who have reached
retirement age. Clearly this is going to be a big issue in the community, and it
is already a very significant issue. We have many family members providing
support to elderly family members, and that is why I believe that the home and
community care (HACC) program and continued funding and resourcing for it is
absolutely critical. 

We must continue to provide some assistance to elderly members
of our community to be able to age in place, within their family home, which is
usually their preference, for as long as possible, and we must provide them with
in-house assistance, whether that is meals on wheels or other assistance towards
the upkeep of their home. If that assistance is not provided, it will fall to
the extended family members to provide it, and, as I said earlier, the
contribution that carers make comes at a significant cost. If we are always
asking extended family members to provide that level of assistance, obviously it
has quite significant consequences in terms of their ability to participate in
the jobs market et cetera.

For the purposes of the bill a care relationship also includes
children and carers in the child protection system where there is a permanent
care order, a child-care agreement or a protection order in place.

The bill does not recognise those care relationships where a
person is paid to care for another person or cares for another person as part of
education or training or as a volunteer through a community organisation.

Part 2 of the bill sets out the care relationship principles,
and part 3 goes on to establish the obligations of care support organisations in
relation to persons who are in care relationships. This is all very good; it is
a positive thing to see these things enacted in legislation.

I note that in its media release of 9 February Carers Victoria
said:

Too many carers are struggling financially. They are physically and
emotionally exhausted, and many are socially isolated.

Carers Victoria sees this bill as a symbolic gesture.

Symbolism is important, but financial support and practical
support is also important. The point I make to the government is that it is
important that this bill is also matched by practical support for the families
of people with a disability. During the adjournment debate on Tuesday evening I
expressed my concern about the restructure of the Department of Human Services
(DHS) and the fact that my electorate has a very high number of people with a
disability and the highest number of disability residential facilities in
Victoria. I raised my concern that the proposed reduction in staff at DHS might
have a detrimental impact on the type of support that the families of people
with a disability receive from that department.

On a previous occasion, when I raised an adjournment matter
last year with the Minister for Community Services specifically about the family
I referred to earlier who have a severely autistic son, I expressed my concern
about the lack of flexibility in the individual support package administered
through DHS. The mother had explained to me that she wanted to use some of the
funding available in that package for respite — for paying for a support worker
who had been very helpful to that family — but that the lack of flexibility presented a real problem. It is important that there is recognition, but it is also important that there is practical support for carers and those with disabilities. We need things like growth funding for individual support packages to avoid lots of families waiting indefinitely on
the waiting list for that level of support.

I will conclude with some words from Carers Victoria in its
media release of 9 February:

… many carers will see the bill as largely a symbolic gesture. They will
be disappointed to have to wait for the government’s carer action agenda to
learn what real changes may take effect.

As I said, this is a positive step; I do not want that to be
misunderstood.

However, this legislation has to be matched with more practical
support for carers in the May budget, which is only a short time away. Recently
a very important report relating to vulnerable children and their families was
tabled. As I said, the bill’s definition of carers extends to those providing
foster care, and those families would also expect there to be some additional
practical support for them in the budget. I conclude by saying that the rhetoric
contained in this bill today must be matched by action.

This restructure is occurring at a time when the Baillieu government should be creating jobs, not destroying them.

It shows how out of touch the minister and this government are
when it comes to the needs of working people who help the most disadvantaged
families and individuals in our community by providing outstanding work through
the Department of Human Services.

The irony will not be lost on anyone in this house, because the
very public servants and senior managers whom the minister seeks to denigrate as
being part of the Department of Human Suffering are exactly the same staff and
leaders who now work for her government. It is the very same department that
supports some of the most vulnerable in our community — people who are
homeless, people who have disabilities and families who are most in need of
assistance.

The specific action I am looking for this evening is for the
Minister for Housing to do the honourable thing and apologise to staff in her
department for her inappropriate and mean-spirited attack.

Ms Pulford — It is embarrassed.

Ms MIKAKOS — Ms Pulford is right. Clearly the government
is embarrassed because it has broken promise after promise. In fact families are
suffering under this government. It clearly has nothing positive to report.

I refer to the 2011 Victorian Families Statement about which
the Premier promised the coalition would ‘promote a strong, competitive
economy’, yet in the recently released state budget update we see a revised
economic growth forecast from 3 per cent down to 2.25 per cent. Victoria’s
growth has come to a screeching halt — in fact it is going backwards, with 21
000 full-time jobs having evaporated since this government came to office. The
unemployment rate in Victoria has risen to 5.4 per cent — higher than the
national average. In addition a plan has been announced to sack 3600 public
servants, so clearly the priority for Victorian families who have a public
servant as a family member is to join the unemployment queue. There has been a
lack of action to support Victoria’s manufacturing industry from a government
that is happy to see more manufacturing jobs move overseas. Youth unemployment
has gone up to 23.1 per cent.

At the same time as this government is slashing the TAFE
sector, apprenticeship fees are going up and funding for the Victorian
certificate of advanced learning has been cut, so clearly there is no plan for
supporting young people into jobs.

Early childhood is an important area that should be at the top
of the government’s list of priorities. So many programs have been cut,
including the Young Readers program; the Reading Recovery in schools program,
including those in my electorate; and free internet services for Victoria’s
kindergartens. There is no dedicated funding to establish new children’s
centres, and funding for the Take a Break occasional child-care program has been
cut, which has resulted in six centres closing their programs so far, and
another six are scheduled to close their program. Some 16 per cent of providers
have cut back their hours, and 71 per cent — 71 per cent! — have increased
their fees. So much for caring about the cost of living.

The Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development,
Minister Lovell, has continually berated the federal government about its
implementation of universal access to 15 hours of kindergarten by 2013. She has
continued to accept federal money for this implementation at the same time as
attacking the federal government, when last year she had only budgeted for $15
million in the state budget for capital improvements to kindergartens. She can
go on Channel 7, as she did last night, and claim that she wants to delay
implementation to 2016, but at this level of state government funding Victorian
kinders will still not be ready to cater for universal access to 15 hours of
kindergarten by 2016.

In relation to the Report of the Protecting Victoria’s
Vulnerable Children Inquiry — an important report that would support vulnerable
children and families — there has been a complete lack of commitment on the
part of Minister Lovell to come into this house and explain what funding she
will provide in her portfolio area to support those families.

That report makes a number of recommendations around the need
for increased investment to playgroups, to maternal child health services and to
kindergartens. When I asked the minister about these issues yesterday in
relation to support of the playgroup program, we got no commitment whatsoever.

Families have been slugged with an 8.6 per cent public
transport fare increase, the fee for motor vehicle registration is going up by
$35 and the hospital system is being cut, with nurse-patient ratios being put at
risk. The emergency rooms in our hospitals are getting worse under this
government at a time when the government has slashed the Department of Health’s
budget.

It is no surprise that this government has failed to release a
2012 families statement, because there is nothing to report but bad news. The
2011 report is a 20-page document full of broken promises and rhetoric, and it
has nothing positive for Victorian families.

This is a government that has brought forward no new ideas of
its own. It has made no new investment in major infrastructure. After being
chastised, it submitted a proposal to Infrastructure Australia requesting
funding for projects initiated by the previous Labor government.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) jobs data for
February shows Victoria’s unemployment rate has increased again to 5.4 per cent.
This is significantly higher than even the national rate of 5.2 per cent. The
Minister for Youth Affairs, Minister Smith, would be well aware that Victoria’s
youth unemployment rate has now risen to 23.1 per cent. Cuts to the very
programs designed to support young people getting into jobs are not helping. I
refer to programs like the Victorian certificate of applied learning and
apprenticeship traineeships. The ABS data shows that so far there are 12 600
fewer jobs in Victoria. These are staggering figures. While the rest of
Australia has created almost 50 000 new full-time jobs since the last Victorian
election, Victoria has lost well over 21 000.

It has now gotten to the point where the Herald Sun, usually
the coalition’s champion, published an editorial on Friday entitled ‘Wake up
Ted, we need you’.

It is time for the Premier to stop playing the blame game and
start playing the real game, that of governing for Victorians. Treasurer Wells
stated in Parliament that he would create 55 000 jobs each year. What has become
of that pledge now?

Suburbs in my electorate of Northern Metropolitan Region have
some of the highest rates of residents with a disadvantage.

According to the 2006 census figures Thomastown and Preston
were rated as the top two Legislative Assembly electorates with the highest
proportion of persons who need assistance in the Northern Metropolitan Region.
Broadmeadows was rated at no. 4. This includes many thousands of people who have
a disability. The 2006 census for the north-western Melbourne statistical region
reported that there were 13 714 persons who had ‘a need for assistance with core
activities’. These residents and their carers rely heavily on the Department of
Human Services for services to assist them with the challenges they face on a
daily basis. I believe that cuts to staff levels will have a detrimental impact
on their quality of life.

The action that I am seeking is for the Minister for Community
Services to provide a guarantee that staffing levels for disability support
workers in the north and west metropolitan region will not be diminished as a
result of the DHS restructure.

In recommendation 80 of the report the inquiry suggests that the government
should establish a children’s services committee of cabinet comprising the
ministers responsible for community services, children, education, health,
community development and justice to oversee a number of things, including the
development and implementation of a whole-of-government vulnerable children and
families strategy. The implementation of these recommendations should be a top
priority for the Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development. I assume
that that minister will be a member of this cabinet committee, yet Minister
Lovell’s lack of response during upper house question time yesterday indicates
otherwise. Minister Lovell indicated that she would not be taking wide-ranging
questions on the report because it is the responsibility of the Minister for
Community Services.

This is extremely concerning, because there are a number of
recommendations within that report that relate directly to Minister Lovell’s
portfolio responsibilities, in particular recommendation 7, which calls for an
increase in appropriate infrastructure and universal services, including
maternal and child health services, kindergartens and community playgroups, for
communities that have the highest concentrations of vulnerable children and
families. I look forward to that recommendation being implemented, because I
think it is a very important recommendation.

Minister Lovell’s response to my question seemed to suggest
that she will play no role in this cabinet committee, which would be
extraordinary. If she is going to be a member of that committee, then she should
be prepared to respond to questions about it in the Parliament.

The Youth Affairs Council of Victoria issued a media release
today expressing disappointment that the inquiry did not recommend that the
Minister for Youth Affairs be on that committee. I share these concerns in that
the report quite clearly discusses and makes recommendations around young people
up to the age of 25 years, which is Minister Smith’s area of responsibility.

Under the Brumby Labor government the youth affairs minister,
James Merlino, the member for Monbulk in the Assembly, was heavily involved in
Victoria’s vulnerable children and young people framework, amongst other things,
including the Connecting at Risk Young People initiative in 2008 and the
Positive Pathways for Victoria’s Vulnerable Young People policy framework to
support vulnerable youth in September 2010.

I believe there is a clear role for both the minister for
children and the minister for youth to be members of this cabinet committee to
oversee the implementation of these recommendations, so I ask the Premier to
advise me of the membership of this committee and in particular whether the
Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development and the Minister for Youth
Affairs will both be members of the children’s services committee of cabinet.

Congratulations to the Whittlesea Youth Commitment team and the
partners and volunteers who helped make this a positive and engaging experience
for young people in Whittlesea

It is a shame that they will not be able to see video evidence
of Mr Finn’s performance, because if they could, they would be absolutely
appalled at his carrying on, particularly before lunchtime. Mr Finn seemed to
forget that he was in the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Victoria. He
must have thought he was at the corner pub. He put on quite a performance.

We have a serious matter before us. The Brunswick community has
been expressing legitimate and genuinely held concerns around this issue for
some time. The Brunswick community wants to be assured that parliamentarians in
this place are actually listening to it. Tomorrow, when members of the Brunswick
community read today’s Daily Hansard, I am sure they will be absolutely
disgusted that members of the Baillieu government have treated their concerns
with such utter contempt. What has been clear from the process to date, which
has brought this revocation motion before the Parliament, is that the government
is not interested in the community’s concerns around this issue.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS — There has been a longstanding history, Mr
Ondarchie, going back many years.

Mr Ondarchie — Have you met with them?

Ms MIKAKOS — You would be surprised at how many
conversations members of Parliament, including me, have had with constituents
around this issue for many years. This issue has come about because the Minister
for Planning has made a decision to rezone the area in which the Brunswick
terminal station is situated to allow for an upgrade and expansion of the
station, which will see its size grow fourfold. The community has expressed a
number of concerns that are still unresolved.

The member for Brunswick has done an excellent job of listening
to those concerns and advocating for her local community. The Leader of the
Opposition has been listening to those concerns. In fact he visited the site
early last year. However, we have had very little interest from members of the
government on this issue. It will be interesting to see whether Mr Ondarchie
will get to his feet and contribute to this debate. I noticed that neither he
nor Mr Guy are on the list of speakers for this debate today, despite the fact
that Mr Ondarchie represents that area, as do I. I look forward to seeing
whether Mr Ondarchie will actually make a contribution and defend the
government’s position, because I am sure he wants to run away from this issue as
quickly as he can.

The government’s response indicates that it is trying to wash
its hands of this issue. The community has expressed genuine concerns about this
issue.

Families in Brunswick have expressed concerns around health,
safety, the environment and amenities. They are concerned about this proposal,
but Mr Finn has said in this chamber today that it is a criminal waste of the
Parliament’s time to be discussing this issue. It is an absolute outrage that
members of the Baillieu government do not believe the Parliament of Victoria
should be concerned about a government process that has not allowed community
input and has not allowed an independent process to be undertaken to consider
these concerns. A council has expressed an opposing view on this proposal on two
occasions, after which the proposal went to the Victorian Civil and
Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). The minister then called the matter in and just
steamrolled the decision, ignoring the wishes of the local council and the local
community. He allowed this project to go ahead with all those unresolved issues
and without the community receiving answers about their concerns.

Mr Finn asked before, ‘What are those issues?’.

I will put some of them on the record. Mr Ramon Colodetti, one
of the key people involved on behalf of the local community, wrote to the
Minister for Health about the issues last year. He received a response dated 16
August 2011 from the Minister for Health’s chief of staff, Rosemary Calder. Mr
Colodetti raised issues around electromagnetic radiation and the concerns of
some people in the community about that. I am not an expert in this area — no
members of Parliament are experts in this area — but the community deserves some answers on this issue.

In the response that the Minister for Health’s chief of staff
wrote to Mr Colodetti it is quite clear that there are still some unresolved
issues. I want to quote from this letter, because I think it raises some issues
that the community wants aired and which have not yet been responded to:

I am advised that a new standard for electromagnetic radiation protection
has been under development for a considerable period by the Australian Radiation
Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency … and that the previous exposure standard
published by the National Health and Medical Research Council has been
withdrawn. As a result of the delay in publication of any new guidance, on 20
May 2011 the minister –

and I think in that case the reference is to the Minister for
Health, David Davis –

wrote to the commonwealth Minister of Health asking her to expedite the
publication of a new standard.

Effectively what this letter is confirming is that there is
still no agreed standard from the federal government about electromagnetic
radiation, and I understand this is still the case. However, the state
government has proceeded with a decision without knowing where the bar is going
to be set, what that standard is going to be in the future and whether this
proposed expanded power station is going to exceed that standard. You would have
thought the state government would wait to get some of those key bits of
information before it went ahead and called the matter in, ignoring these issues
and allowing this project to go ahead.

I thought Mrs Petrovich’s contribution on this issue was very
interesting. She has been advocating for 2-kilometre buffers for wind turbines,
but the people of Brunswick apparently do not deserve the same level of
protection in relation to electromagnetic powerlines.

There are a lot of concerns that could have been considered
through an independent process, and perhaps people’s minds might have been put
at rest if scientific evidence indicated that the community should not be
concerned. But because there has not been an independent process, the community
will never know. Members of the community will never be able to put their minds
at rest knowing there are no health dangers they should be concerned about. I
can tell the house that the community is very concerned about these issues and
if there had been an independent process, all of these issues would have been
able to be considered.

This proposal affects Brunswick East, which is located in the
Moreland municipality but is very close to the border — –

Mr Ondarchie — What street is it in?

Ms MIKAKOS — It is in King Street. Perhaps Mr Ondarchie
should go and visit it. It borders the municipalities of Darebin and Yarra,
municipalities that are in my and Mr Ondarchie’s electorate. Mr Ondarchie has
been conspicuously silent on this issue.

This is an area that was previously zoned residential 1 and
borders many homes and the parkland in the Merri Creek corridor.

The Brunswick terminal station is owned and operated by SP
AusNet, with CitiPower distributing electricity from the site to approximately
25 000 customers in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne, including
Brunswick, Northcote, Carlton, Fitzroy, Fairfield and Collingwood. I know
residents even further north, for example in Reservoir, which is very close to
my electorate office, are also concerned about this proposal because it will
lead to high voltages travelling through powerlines situated over homes that
have been there for many years. There are some concerns held by people not just
in the Brunswick area but also further afield. I think Mr Ondarchie should get
out there and have a chat to some of the residents about these issues, because
he would be surprised about the level of concern.

We have had references made to previous council decisions in
the course of this debate. For the record I want to refer to that issue briefly.

There was quite a considerable discussion at Moreland City
Council’s urban planning committee meeting on 23 November 2011, and I have a
copy of the minutes of that meeting. Two motions were discussed that evening.
The first motion, moved by Cr Connellan and seconded by Cr Archer, both Greens
councillors, supported this proposal going ahead. That motion, thankfully, was
lost. There was a second motion, moved by Cr Tapinos and seconded by Cr
Kariofyllidis, that rejected this proposal. In part that motion reads:

… because the applicant has failed to satisfactorily demonstrate how the
buildings and works will reduce the impact on the health of the community and
how the works will satisfy a policy of prudent avoidance to eliminate any health
effects associated with exposure to electromagnetic energy fields.

This particular motion refusing the planning permit was carried
by Moreland council.

I know the mayor, of whom Mr Finn is a big fan, has expressed
his concerns in the local paper. The mayor, Cr John Kavanagh, was quoted in the
Moreland Leader of 23 February as saying this was a ‘blow for local democracy’.

The Labor councillors on the local council have been supportive of the
community’s concerns around this issue, supported by the local member and the
Labor Party, which at the last election gave a commitment to keep talking and
working with the stakeholders and the community to try to find a solution that
looks at alternative locations.

We were looking at a process that would have taken on board
community concerns around this issue, but what we got from the Baillieu
government was a reversion back to the Maclellan days. We know Minister Guy’s
hero is former Kennett government minister Mr Maclellan, who was infamous for
the number of call-ins and ministerial interventions he made whilst he was
planning minister. We know the Baillieu government has just reverted back to
form and that Jeff Kennett is advising the Premier behind the scenes. That has
come to the fore in recent weeks in the media as well.

We know this state government is a conservative coalition
government that, true to form, is about trampling on local communities’ wishes,
intervening in planning matters and allowing developments to go through,
irrespective of the wishes of local communities.

I want to quote again from Mr Colodetti, a spokesperson from
the Merri Creek Residents Group, who is rightly outraged at the contempt this
government has shown.

Mr Ondarchie — Have you met him?

Ms MIKAKOS — In fact he was here earlier, Mr Ondarchie.
There was an opportunity for you to meet him.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS– I just told you he was here earlier.

Mr Ondarchie — Have you met him? Did you meet him out there?

Ms MIKAKOS — Obviously, Mr Ondarchie. The Moreland Leader
of 20 February 2012, quotes Mr Colodetti as saying:

Last year we tried to get the state government involved and they said, ‘No,
it’s not our position, we’re happy for it to go through the planning process
with Moreland council’ …

He went on:

Now it has been called in. The government has backflipped.

That goes to the crux of the motion. We have had a process
whereby the government initially gave an indication it was going to allow the
council to deal with this matter as the planning authority. The council
expressed a view on two occasions. The matter has gone to the Victorian Civil
and Administrative Tribunal, but the government has not allowed VCAT to decide
on the matter. The minister has called the matter in and completely trampled on
the community’s and the local council’s wishes. There has not been an
independent process to consider all of these community concerns, and this
project has been allowed to go ahead. For those reasons I support the motion,
and urge the government to revoke this decision immediately.

This is an important report which contains wide-reaching
recommendations that cover a number of government departments. In addition to
the recommendations regarding the child protection system, which are relevant to
the Department of Human Services, there are also recommendations that relate to
the health system, early years services, education and the Victorian court
system. I would expect the ministers with these responsibilities to come into
this house and answer questions specifically relating to their portfolios as
well as explain what they will do to implement the report’s recommendations.

However, this report comes in the wake of the Baillieu
government’s Christmas present to Victorians: the announcement that 3600 public
sector jobs will be cut. We heard last week that 500 jobs will be cut from the
Department of Human Services in an organisational restructure. That is only what
we know so far.

We do not know how many jobs will be cut from the Department of
Education and Early Childhood Development or the Department of Health, two
departments that also figure prominently in this report. The government needs to
explain how it will implement these recommendations in light of $480 million
being cut from the DEECD budget and $500 million from the Department of Health
budget. These departments are losing money and workers at a time when they most
need them to implement these important recommendations. I am concerned that
these things are occurring at a time which will make it harder to implement
reforms that are critical to children’s welfare.

In his media release yesterday the Premier outlined new
funding. The Community and Public Sector Union has already commented that this
is a repackaging of previous funding, so it will be interesting to see whether
there will be a matching of the rhetoric that we have heard so far and whether we will see a significant investment across government departments in the state budget this year. I think that would be the community’s
expectation in relation to this report and the wide-ranging recommendations
contained within it.

In relation to chapter 7, I was particularly interested to read
the commentary and recommendations about Victoria’s early year services. The
report makes it clear that we have a high-quality early childhood education
system, which is a positive legacy of the former Labor government’s
administration. We have very high kindergarten participation rates in our state,
and many families utilise maternal and child health services. However, there is
always room for improvement. I note that the inquiry report also comments on the
Auditor-General’s finding last year that more could be done in relation to
maternal and child health services.

Earlier today I specifically raised with the Minister for
Children and Early Childhood Development recommendation 7 in the report, which
talks about investment and appropriate infrastructure for universal early
childhood services. However, Minister Lovell dodged the question. She even
failed to give in-principle support to additional investment for the protection
of vulnerable children, which was very disappointing.

I will be coming back to this report in the future. It is
critical that these recommendations are addressed speedily. I particularly urge
Minister Lovell to get on with it, to address the recommendations that relate to
her portfolio and to contribute a significant investment by way of funding early
childhood services.

The Greek Women’s Elderly and Friendly Club was also recognised as Darebin 2012
Community Group of the Year for its longstanding commitment assisting elderly
women to be independent and organising social activities. I take this
opportunity to congratulate the committee and in particular its president, Penny
Zacharias. I also congratulate John Nicolaou, president of the Reservoir Greek
Elderly Citizens Group, on his nomination. Ann Anderson was made Darebin citizen
of the year for her 15 years of service as a volunteer for the Love in the Name
of Christ Church in the northern suburbs. Joint winners Holly Pereira and Alex
Smart were awarded Darebin young citizen of the year for their participation and
commitment to helping organise drug and alcohol-free music events for all ages
in the City of Darebin’s FReeZA program.

A number of people involved in the Labor movement were awarded
Order of Australia medals, including Mr Joe Caputo for his outstanding
contribution to multiculturalism in serving the Italian community, the Victorian
Multicultural Commission, local government and the Ethnic Communities Council of
Victoria, which he currently chairs. Former Labor minister Caroline Hogg was
honoured with a Public Service Medal for her outstanding service to the public.
I congratulate all award recipients on their wonderful efforts and continual
advocacy in our community.

The spokesperson on opposition scrutiny of government, Mr
Pakula, has already said in relation to these issues that the state opposition
will support the second-reading vote on this bill but we will be seeking to make
significant amendments to the bill because we do not believe it meets the
objectives set out in the coalition’s election promise. If those amendments are
not supported by the government, we will be opposing the third reading of this
bill.

It was interesting to listen to Mr O’Brien’s contribution,
because essentially his defence was that FOI legislation could have operated
better in the past, therefore those in government are going to ignore their
election commitments and weaken freedom of information legislation. I do not
want to be too rough on Mr O’Brien, because he and I worked at the same law firm
at different times. He must have learnt something while he was there. I am sure
that if he were to go and have a considered look at the bill before the house —
–

Mr P. Davis interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS — In case Mr Davis is wondering, it was
Mallesons. If Mr Davis has a look, he will find that I worked at an interesting
array of law firms in the past.

The legislation before the house does not go anywhere near
delivering on the coalition’s original promises in this area; it falls very far
short of what those opposite promised. We are supportive of the establishment of
an FOI commissioner and a parliamentary scrutiny committee, but we do not
support them if they are toothless tigers, which is what this bill seeks to make them. Those opposite are establishing bodies with very limited jurisdiction and with no real
independence, thereby entrenching further delays in the FOI system.

Mr Barber has already alluded to the fact that freedom of
information legislation was a very important historic achievement — a legacy of
past Labor governments — that began with John Cain implementing the Freedom of
Information Act 1982. That was a significant piece of legislation for this
state. If we look at the coalition’s record since that time, we see it is far
from impressive. The Kennett era in the 1990s brought with it all sorts of
tactics to tighten FOI legislation. It sought to broaden the definition of
exempt cabinet documents and introduced a $20 application fee, and it required a
$170 fee for deemed refusals — that is, the payment of a further $170 just for
the privilege of having the government delay responding to your FOI request.

Let us not forget that at one point those in government in that
time even threatened to scrap the freedom of information act altogether.

When Labor first came to office it made key reforms to the
freedom of information legislation. The most recent reforms were in 2007. We
believe that freedom of information is significant legislation. The coalition
went to the election with detailed commitments in this area. It claimed in its
policy document that:

Lack of scrutiny hinders good decisions and policies …

and:

Government without scrutiny is bad government.

Since that commitment was made we have had over a year of the
coalition in government breaking many promises and backflipping on other
promises. This is just the latest one. My own experience of dealing with freedom
of information legislation relates to my attempt to have the government release
the KPMG report into the Take a Break occasional child-care program. I lodged my
request in July 2011, and for seven months my request, appeals and attempts to
seek review were knocked back. It was only when I lodged an appeal with the
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and was about to make my public
interest submission that the Minister for Children and Early Childhood
Development, Minister Lovell, finally decided to release the report. It is
farcical that the only way we can get access to documents and have FOI requests
responded to is by commencing legal proceedings before VCAT.

In that case it was clear that in that case the Victorian
Government Solicitor’s Office had actually given advice to the Department of
Education and Early Childhood Development to Minister Lovell that she was going
to lose the matter before VCAT. That is a complete joke. The Age has reported
that Don Coulson, Mr Baillieu’s FOI adviser, has been closely involved in
decisions made by departmental FOI officers. He has been able to effectively
pluck to safety any politically sensitive FOI requests. This shows that the
government is treating our freedom of information legislation with absolute
contempt. Under this bill the FOI commissioner will have no jurisdiction over
the decisions of ministers and departmental heads, and perhaps that is because
those decisions are already being taken by Mr Coulson. It is an absolute
travesty that that process has been centralised in the Premier’s office.

On 11 December 2011 the editorial in the Sunday Herald Sun
called this bill ‘a joke’. I agree with that assessment. The editorial went on
to say:

The commissioner will have no jurisdiction over ministers or their officers
… The new commissioner will also be unable to review refusals to provide
access to cabinet documents. And departmental secretaries will also be safe from
the commissioner’s powers.

…

The government should be ashamed of this disgraceful legislation.

The government should be absolutely ashamed; this legislation
is a complete joke. There was a very detailed coalition document, but time will
not permit me to quote extensively from it. There is a lot of talk about
sanctions, enforcing compliance, failures to comply and so on and so forth, but
what have we seen in this bill? It is a complete joke. We have seen no carryover
of the coalition’s election commitments into the bill itself.

The fierce watchdog promised while it was in opposition is
looking more like a bouncy little puppy looking on in earnest but tied firmly to
the leash of the Baillieu government. This is a complete disappointment. My
colleague Mr Pakula very capably set out in great detail all the flaws in the
bill, so I will not attempt to go through all of that again. I put on the record
my huge disappointment with the backflips of the Baillieu government to date,
particularly in relation to this area. What the government has delivered falls
way short of what it promised. It is extremely disappointing that we have a bill
that is ‘the harder to obtain information act’, and it should be condemned.

I welcome any proposal to strengthen the teaching of languages other than
English in our schools. The previous Labor government had embarked upon the
Victorian languages strategy to do exactly that. It had considered ideas around
immersion teaching, which teaches mainstream subjects such as maths and science
in a second language. It also looked at the possible sharing of teachers and
resources through local clusters. Both of these ideas have been taken up in this
trial. If maths and science were taught in Greek, students would have the
benefit of learning that words such as algebra, Pythagoras, hypothesis and
chemistry are Greek words.

The Greek community ran a hugely successful campaign for the
inclusion of Modern Greek in the national school curriculum as a language of
significant cultural, social and economic importance to Australia. The Brumby
Labor government backed its inclusion, and this was subsequently supported by
the Gillard federal government.

This is an issue of particular significance to my electorate.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 census there remains a
significantly higher proportion of residents in my electorate who speak Greek at
home — 4.7 per cent — than across metropolitan Melbourne as a whole. But I
recognise that this is also an issue of importance to other parts of Melbourne
– in particular areas with very significant Greek communities, such as that in
Oakleigh.

The retention rate for the Greek language amongst younger
generations is one of the highest of any community language in Victoria.
However, there has been a long-term historic decline in the Greek language being
taught in Victorian government schools. It was very discouraging when in 2010
Wales Street Primary School in Thornbury decided to discontinue its Greek
program, and many parents were rightly disappointed. It would have meant that
there would no longer have been a feeder primary school for the Greek program
offered by nearby Thornbury High School.

After months of lobbying by parents and support from the member
for Northcote in the Assembly and me, the former Minister for Education, Bronwyn
Pike, recognised its importance and stepped up to the mark to provide additional
funding for the Modern Greek language program at that school.

I am aware that Fairfield Primary School, also in my
electorate, has recently dropped its Greek language program, which I am
concerned about. I believe that if Modern Greek were taught as part of this
trial of cluster arrangements, it would have the potential to solve the problem
at Fairfield Primary School, as well as at other schools.

I query whether there was community consultation in the
determination of the languages that have been selected. What consultation, if
any, has occurred with Victorian schools? I call on the Minister for Education
to include Modern Greek in the trial of the content and language integrated
learning program.

I believe he was Victoria’s best Attorney-General, and I was
proud to work as his parliamentary secretary for five years. His hard work and
passion for helping others has made Victoria a better and fairer place. I wish
Rob, Carolyn and their children all the very best for the future.

The observance of the opening of the legal year is a
longstanding tradition, and I thank the organisers of the various observances
for their work. It allows us to reflect on the partnership of the community and
the legal profession in working towards a just society.

In an extraordinary performance in parliament today, Ryan Smith had no idea what the youth unemployment rate was.

Shadow Minister for Children and Young Adults Jenny Mikakos said Ryan Smith had shown his complete disregard for his own portfolio and for the young people he represented.

“It’s just amazing the Minister for Youth Affairs doesn’t even know how many young people are without work,” Ms Mikakos said.

“If Ryan Smith doesn’t know there is a problem, how can he do anything about it?

“Ryan Smith is responsible for representing young people and making sure they receive the support they need, but it’s now clear he’s just not up to the job.

Victoria’s youth unemployment is at 21.1 per cent.

“Mr Smith’s accusations that the Opposition was too focused on statistics were astounding – what Ryan Smith needs to understand is that behind these statistics are real people who are facing a tough future,” Ms Mikakos said.

“Nothing is more important to Victorians than a job but it appears the Baillieu Government doesn’t care about creating work for young people.

“Where is Mr Baillieu’s plan to make sure young people can find a job?”

Nurses and midwives from across Victoria work hard taking care of patients each and every day. The Baillieu Government has also flagged replacing nurses and midwives with unregistered and unqualified assistants.

VCAL provides students with related work experience, literacy and numeracy skills and the opportunity to develop personal skills to prepare them for further education, training or employment. It was started by the former Labor Government in 2002 and is now undertaken by about 20,000 students at more than 400 schools, TAFEs and adult learning centres.

Many local schools in the northern suburbs will be affected by these cuts. It’s obvious education and skills training are not a priority for the Baillieu Government.

Pictured, on the 17 November 2011, Jenny was the keynote speaker at the Whittlesea Youth Commitment Spirit of Cooperation Recognition and Celebration event. The Whittlesea Youth Commitment work to ensure that youth in Whittlesea are provided with every opportunity to complete year 12 or its equivalent in training and employment. The event noted the importance of VCAL to providing young people with educational choices and also celebrated the renewal of the 3 year agreement between the City of Whittlesea, RMIT University and Hume Whittlesea LLEN, and other stakeholders. Pictured here with Jenny are the Member for Mill Park, Lily D’Ambrosio and Chair of the Whittlesea Youth Commitment, Cr John Fry.

The LLLS allows many seniors to maintain muscle strength and improve their fitness and balance. It assists in managing diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis and other chronic diseases, as well as keeping seniors active and connected to their communities.

The Council on The Ageing (COTA) has been running the program since 2000 and it benefits approximately 17,000 senior participants annually in around 120 centres across Victoria.

The Living Longer Living Stronger program is offered at many leisure centres across the inner and northern suburbs, including the Richmond Leisure Centre. Pictured, on the 25 November 2011, Jenny, along with the Member for Richmond, Richard Wynne visited the Richmond Leisure Centre which runs a Living Longer Living Stronger program that enables seniors to engage in weights based training. Strength training also helps maintain mental and psychological wellbeing and can be used in treating depression and allows seniors to live independently for longer.

The previous Labor Government funded this and other strength training programs because we recognised the benefit that weight and fitness training programs can provide to older people. It’s time Mr Baillieu does the same.

Pictured here with Jenny are the Member for Yan Yean, Danielle Green, Member for Ivanhoe, Anthony Carbines and Leader of the Opposition, Daniel Andrews.

The Government has today released a report into the Take-A-Break Occasional Childcare.

Ms Mikakos said the Baillieu Government had instead used the report as a flimsy excuse about why it was refusing to fund the program, despite it highlighting the many benefits it provides children and parents.

“The decision to cut funding from Take-A-Break Occasional Childcare program is having a devastating impact on 9000 children and their families,” Ms Mikakos said.

“Instead of looking after the welfare and educational needs of these children, the Children’s Minister Wendy Lovell has decided that penny pinching is more important.

“For Ms Lovell to now rubbish this program when she has spent the past nine months calling on the Commonwealth to fund it smacks of hypocrisy.

“For the sake of a relatively small investment of $2 million, this important program would have been saved. That’s why the Labor Government provided the funding in 2010.

“Regardless of advice that a consultant provides, in the end it is the government that makes the decision about whether to fund a program or not. The buck stops with the Premier and the Minister.”

The KPMG report was released by the Baillieu Government because today the Opposition was due to lodge its public interest grounds submission to seek the report at VCAT, following a seven month battle with the government to access it through Freedom of Information.

“Obviously Baillieu Government lawyers have advised Ms Lovell they would have lost at VCAT,” Ms Mikakos said.

“The question needs to be asked – if the report was so supportive of the Baillieu Government’s decision to axe funding, then why didn’t it release the report earlier?”

Ms Mikakos said Minister’s press release today attempted to denigrate the program, but the report outlined a number of key strengths including:

• Parents believe it is a safe and welcoming environment where children had a strong connection with staff;
• Parents received health benefits;
• Reduced social isolation for culturally and linguistically-diverse communities, and families in rural areas;
• Increased education levels and workforce participation for parents; and
• Played a role in detecting and diagnosing health and developmental issues that children presented.

Ms Mikakos said the report found that the program’s “social benefit exceeds social cost” and that fees were very affordable.

“For the Baillieu Government to ignore these findings shows a clear lack of understanding of the benefits of this program for Victorian families,” she said.

“Instead of choosing to use the report to improve the program, they chose the simple option of abandoning the 9000 families that use the program.

“As foreshadowed in the report, many services reported that they would have to close the Take-A-Break program if the subsidy was removed. Unfortunately this is now the case with five services so far ending their programs.

The Association of Neighbourhood Houses and Learning Centre (ANHLC) has reported this week that the Baillieu Government’s axing of funding has led to an average fee increase of 15 per cent this year.

“The Baillieu Government fee increase will significantly cut into the family budget despite its promise to cut the cost of living.”

Lily was born with a condition that severely restricts the flow of air through her trachea to her larynx. When she was three months old she underwent a tracheostomy to insert a tube into her trachea. This tube allows Lily an alternate way of breathing by bypassing the obstruction in her upper airway.

Lily’s condition is such that to attend kindergarten she will require the constant supervision of a trained carer who can perform suction or an emergency tube change if her airway becomes blocked.

Lily’s family began the process of applying for a KISS package six months ago, and they have provided the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development with many medical reports. According to the department’s KISS information and application kit, parents and kindergartens were meant to be notified by 28 October 2011 if they were successful. However, other than verbal approval in principle, this family has had very little communication from the department so far.

The family has had to chase the department for information.

They were advised this week by a staff member at the Loddon Mallee regional office that Lily’s request, as well as those of another five families in the region, was on hold because the minister had requested new protocols and that it was unknown when the protocols would be finalised. They were also told that Lily was unlikely to be starting kindergarten in February. Since I raised the issue of the protocols today in question time, magically the new guidelines have been provided to this family, although the old guidelines are still on the department’s website.

The new eligibility criteria state that a child:

requires health support procedures during the kindergarten program that can reasonably be expected to be undertaken by kindergarten staff with specific training and ongoing monitoring …

A child like Lily, who needs an externally trained carer, is now likely to be ineligible. It is appalling that the goalposts have been moved at the 11th hour for this family. If Lily is to start kindergarten in February, her carer requires approximately six weeks of training in the procedures necessary to keep her alive. It is now two weeks away from Christmas, and many public servants will soon be going on leave. I am concerned that time is running out to put the necessary arrangements in place for Lily.

I note that the Premier has claimed that front-line services would not be affected by the government’s $480 million cuts to the Department of Education’s budget, but we have seen many cuts to the Victorian certificate of applied learning, child care, reading programs and many other services.

I call on the minister to expedite approval of KISS funding for children like Lily with complex medical conditions whose applications have now been stalled to enable them to start kindergarten in February next year.

The opposition takes this opportunity today to remind members opposite of the existence of the families statement, of the fine rhetoric contained in the statement about the aspirations of the government in relation to services that Victorian families rely on. Clearly it has not put that rhetoric into practice. We have seen the government, in the state budget earlier this year and in successive policy announcements during the course of the year, fail to support the expectations of Victorian families, which would be disappointing for those families.

We are now at the end of the 12-month mark since the election of the Baillieu government. Mr O’Donohue, as the lead speaker for the government today, made an 8-minute contribution in which his defence, in summary, is that it has had only 12 months. Twelve months is a significant period for a government to move to deliver on the promises it made during the last election campaign. The Victorian public’s expectation would be that it would move to deliver on those promises, and it just does not wash as a defence to say, ‘We have had only 12 months’. The government went to the election making all sorts of promises about fixing the so-called problems it sought to identify during the campaign last year, but it has delivered a lot on rhetoric and very little in reality.

Victorian families deserve decent services from the state government — for example, they expect the state government to deliver an education system that will provide opportunities for their children.

They expect the schools their children attend will have appropriate facilities and programs to support them, irrespective of their level of English proficiency or the financial background or income levels of their family. What we have seen from this government is a stripping of $300 from the household budgets of 100 000 families by its slashing of the eligibility to the School Start bonus, something that flies in the face of the government’s so-called commitment to address cost of living pressures. Apprenticeship fees have also been forced up by an extra $200 per year.

In relation to the infrastructure that families expect the government to deliver to school students across the state, the former Labor government’s $1.9 billion Victorian schools plan has been axed. It committed to fund every Victorian government school to be rebuilt, renovated or extended by 2016. That commitment the previous Labor government made would have seen schools supported irrespective of where the student lived.

You have to live in a marginal seat in the eastern part of metropolitan Melbourne to get your school funded, because you certainly will not get your school funded if you live in Northern Metropolitan Region. The government went to the election with a list of election commitments in relation to schools which did not provide for a single school in my electorate to be rebuilt or modernised during this term of government. It is an absolute indictment of this government that it seeks to provide funding on the basis of where you are located in Melway rather than on the basis of need.

We have also seen that kind of pork-barrelling in other areas. For example, when it comes to railway crossings, the good burghers of Brighton get the benefit of a railway crossing even though their railway crossing is no.

223 on the Department of Transport’s list, but my constituents in Northern Metropolitan Region will miss out on a railway crossing despite the fact that Bell Street, Coburg, and Bell Street, Preston, happen to be in the top 10 of the Department of Transport’s list. It is an absolute indictment of the Baillieu government that it is seeking to deprive Victorian families of important infrastructure based on their geography.

Mr Elsbury — Absolute rubbish!

Ms MIKAKOS – It is absolute fact. Mr Elsbury needs to go back and check the coalition’s election commitments and see for himself the pork-barrelling that occurred. That will also deprive his constituents, because the western suburbs fared very badly in the list of election commitments that his party made.

Hon. W. A. Lovell — Acting President, today is opposition business day but I note that opposition members fail to be here to support their speaker, and I draw your attention to the state of the house.

Quorum formed.

Ms MIKAKOS – I am pleased that members of the government have come into the house to listen to my contribution, because I hope they may learn a few things.

Hon. W. A. Lovell — Yet the opposition didn’t!

Ms MIKAKOS – The members of the opposition are very well informed about the failures of this government to provide for Victorian families. It is time that members of the government took note of the

abysmal failures of Ms Lovell’s government in its first 12 months of office.

I was saying that it is an absolute disgrace that this government has failed to provide essential programs and infrastructure in our education system. Labor has always regarded a good education system as the no. 1 priority of a state government. That was our no. 1 priority and it continues to be our no. 1 priority, and I am very proud of that fact.

What we have seen from the Baillieu government is, for example, the stripping of funding to the renowned Reading Recovery program, which I spoke about yesterday. That program helps young children who are struggling with literacy and numeracy skills to acquire those skills, and gives them an equal opportunity with every other child in the education system to be able to utilise their educational opportunities. We have seen schools in my electorate affected by cuts to this program.

I raised the issue yesterday evening of Mill Park Heights Primary School. It has had to notify parents that it will be discontinuing this program because of cuts to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development northern region office and the flow-on effects of that for that school.

I am sure there are many other schools that are similarly affected, because this Reading Recovery program has been very popular. It is popular in working-class suburbs, such as those in the northern and western suburbs, where there are a lot of migrant families with children who may well struggle to acquire English language literacy skills. They are families who deserve support. Minister Lovell gave an answer to a Dorothy Dixer in question time today when she was talking about supporting young children. She was happy to launch a brochure, but what about actually putting some dollars into programs like the Reading Recovery program that would enable children from those families to acquire literacy skills that they will need in life?

We have seen the absurd situation of cuts to the VCAL (Victorian certificate of applied learning) program, an extremely popular program that seeks to give young people of various backgrounds opportunities to pursue vocationally oriented education. Not everyone will be able to undertake the Victorian certificate of education program and go on to tertiary education. Some young people will prefer to undertake the VCAL program, which has proved to be extremely popular with the many thousands of students who have enrolled in it. We have seen $48 million cut from the VCAL program, and people in many of my local schools are saying they will struggle to keep that program going.

What does it say about the priorities of this government that it is seeking to make such significant cuts to the education budget? Education has been stripped of $481 million and has seen its capital works budget halved, cuts to literacy and numeracy programs and the scrapping of 200 teaching and learning coaches. They are all cuts that will impact on Victorian families.

Many northern suburbs schools have been notified that they will miss out on completing their infrastructure projects. Many of those projects were under way during the term of the previous government, and those school communities are extremely disappointed by those cuts. In the north, for example, we had the cancelling of the Greensborough Secondary College upgrade and the stalling of building the new Doreen secondary college.

Mr Ondarchie — When you were in government how many times did you mention Greensborough Secondary College?

Ms MIKAKOS – What are we seeing from Mr Ondarchie? Last week he was going around with the minister, attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies for Labor projects. It is terrific that Mr Ondarchie has been tweeting about those wonderful Labor projects that will benefit our constituents in the northern suburbs.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – But how about you take your job seriously and advocate to your cabinet colleagues and your government the need — –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Ramsay) — Order! Ms Mikakos should address her remarks through the Chair.

Ms MIKAKOS – We are seeing a complete failure by the two members of the coalition who represent the Northern Metropolitan Region — Mr Ondarchie and Minister Guy — to take the case up to their colleagues in the Baillieu government and actually get some services and infrastructure for schools in the north and get support for Victorian families in the northern suburbs. There have also been no road upgrades delivered to the Assembly electorate of Yan Yean, which is a growing community.

We see the Minister for Planning, Mr Guy, talking about expanding the urban growth boundary and seeking to bring more families into the northern suburbs of Melbourne, but providing no corresponding support for infrastructure. We have had the cancellation of the bus service to Mernda, no extra trains on the Epping and Hurstbridge lines and no new money for bus services. Mr Ondarchie should hang his head in shame because he has been an abysmal failure for the Victorian families who live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

The other issue I want to mention in relation to education is the important issue of early childhood education. We have seen an absolute failure by the Baillieu government to support families with very young children through the early education system. We have seen numerous cuts in this area and the axing of the Take a Break occasional child-care program, and I am sure this will excite Mr Drum and other members of the government because they are very sensitive to criticism around this issue. They seek to mislead the Victorian public on these issues.

An affected parent, Ms Vicki Weatherlake, posed a question to the Premier which was published in the Sunday Age a couple of weeks ago, asking the Premier why he would not reinstate funding for the Take a Break program.

In an extraordinary response the Premier sought to ignore the fact that it was the previous Labor government that had saved the program and fully funded it in the previous financial year. Rather, the Premier spoke about how his government had stepped in to continue funding till the end of the year. Thank you very much, Premier, but what your decision in this year’s budget actually means is that a number of centres have either wound up their occasional care programs or are in the process of doing so. A number of centres have advised their local communities that they will be discontinuing their occasional care programs, and some have already done so. These include The Basin Community House, Longbeach PLACE occasional child care, Chelsea Heights Community Centre, Mallacoota Kindergarten, Crib Point Community House and Baranduda Community Centre.

Mr Ondarchie — Did you visit them all?

Ms MIKAKOS – All of these communities have lost their occasional child-care programs.

Mr Ondarchie — So you didn’t visit them all?

Ms MIKAKOS – You would be surprised at the number of centres I have visited and the number of families who have spoken to me about how appalled they are that this state government has sought to axe a program that supports 9000 families across Victoria. If the government were serious about supporting Victorian families and if this document actually had any value, the government would be supporting the Take a Break occasional child-care program. But the fact that it has decided to axe that program speaks volumes about its priorities.

It says the government is prepared to have families deprived of occasional child care and to have families make very difficult decisions just before Christmas about what arrangements they will make for their children next year — difficult decisions about whether mum is able to continue her part-time job and what arrangements they will make for parents to attend medical and other necessary appointments.

Mr Drum interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – A number of farming families have contacted me expressing concerns about how they will have to spray chemicals on their farms whilst their young children are around. In the past they have used occasional child care to place their children out of harm’s way when these important jobs were being undertaken on the farm.

Mr Drum — Sickening. You are a disgrace. Pick up the phone and ring — –

Ms MIKAKOS – You think I am sickening, Mr Drum — –

Mr Drum interjected.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Ramsay) — Order! Enough! Mr Drum should return to his place if he wishes to comment.

Ms MIKAKOS – Thank you, Acting President. I know this is a very sensitive issue for members of the government, that they are embarrassed by the fact that Minister Lovell continues to come into this chamber sitting week after sitting week to defend the indefensible — a $1.9 million cut to a program that supports 9000 Victorian families in this state. She seeks to play politics with an issue that is so critical to Victorian families.

If Mr Drum and members of the government are serious about supporting Victorian families, then I would urge them to do a rethink about this issue and to give Victorian families an early Christmas present by announcing to them before Parliament rises tomorrow that the government will reinstate this funding.

It is a drop in the ocean of the Victorian state budget. You know that, Acting President, I know that, and Victorian families know that. The minister could find those funds very easily from within her departmental budget. It does not need to go to a budget line item; it is such a small program. Minister Lovell could fix this if she wanted to. If she was prepared to concede that she got it wrong, she could fix this tomorrow, but I suspect that ego will get in the way of good policy and she will not be prepared to come in here and do so, and that will be a huge disappointment to those families that I have identified in all of those centres that are either already closed or are closing just before Christmas.

A number of local councils have had to step in to save occasional child-care programs around Victoria, and I take this opportunity to congratulate Glen Eira City Council, Frankston City Council, Greater Shepparton City Council — in the minister’s own electorate — the City of Port Phillip, Brimbank City Council and Moyne Shire Council, which have all been prepared to step in to fund occasional child care for their local communities to ensure that their families do not miss out. But then what do we see? We see cost shifting going on from the state government to local government, and ratepayers will have to pick up the bill for those centres to continue to operate.

Also in relation to Take a Break, a number of centres have already told their families that they will be increasing fees next year in response to the loss of state government funding. These centres include Yarralea Children’s Centre, Wingate Avenue Community Centre, Berwick Neighbourhood Centre, Greenhills Neighbourhood Centre, Heidelberg Occasional Child Care Centre and Wallan Neighbourhood House Occasional Care. I know there will be many other centres that will be forced to increase their fees in order to keep the program going. So much for support for families with cost of living pressures, and of course as fees go up the corresponding outcome will be that more families will reluctantly pull their children out of these programs and the viability of these programs will be affected, so we will see next year and perhaps the year after more centres closing their programs because they will not be able to keep going as enrolments decline and fees go up.

In early childhood education we have seen other programs affected.

I particularly want to focus on the cutting of the program that Labor had established which provided dedicated funding to children’s centres. Many communities, particularly in the growth suburbs, had plans to build new children’s centres to cater for their growing populations. In the city of Whittlesea, for example, the local council had plans to build additional children’s centres, but it will have to do so with its own ratepayers funds because it will be next to impossible for the state government to be able to provide both expansions to existing kindergartens in anticipation of increases to kindergarten participation hours as well as funding for new children’s centres being built, so many communities will miss out. They will miss out on kindergarten expansions, but they will also miss out on new children’s centres being built.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – Victorian families will know who is responsible. They will know that Mr Ondarchie will be responsible for failing the families in the northern suburbs by failing to provide additional children’s centres. We have had Minister Lovell putting out media releases claiming credit for children’s centres that were in fact funded by the previous Labor government — something that she has obviously been very embarrassed about since then — in Whittlesea, in Moreland and in other communities where she has sought to claim credit.

At the end of the day the facts speak for themselves, and we have seen very little from this government in relation to early childhood education. We have seen cuts to other programs that supported kindergartens under the previous government. We provided free internet access. The department advised kindergartens earlier this year that they will now no longer be able to access the internet through VICNET, which is supported by the state library.

Those kindergartens will have to go out and fundraise to keep the internet access going, and a one-off grant by the state government is not going to be enough to access an internet service provider, an IT help desk and all the other things that will be required as a result of this change. Some centres will need to change their email addresses and change their website addresses because of this change. That will be accompanied by additional costs for new stationery and new signage in order for them to comply with children’s regulations.

We have also seen the Young Readers program cut — again galling when you think about the need to support literacy skills amongst young children. We had a program that distributed free books through maternal and child health services. That program has been cut as well — another loss to the literacy skills of our young people.

There are many services that Victorian families rely on other than education, and a decent health system is an essential component of that too, but what we are seeing at the moment is a health system in crisis, with nurses being forced to take industrial action to defend important nurse-patient ratios that have provided good quality care to Victorian families and to Victorian patients over the last few years. We have seen ambulance response times at record lows. We have seen blow-outs in elective surgery waiting times and also hospital emergency departments that are overcrowded and in crisis.

We have not seen one extra doctor, one extra nurse or one extra hospital bed, despite the fact that the Baillieu government went to the election promising hundreds of new hospital beds. It promised to deliver an extra 100 hospital beds this year, but we now have one more sitting day before this parliamentary year ends and I would not count on the health minister being able to deliver 100 hospitals beds before the end of the year.

We will see almost $500 million being slashed from the health sector over the next four years. In my electorate we saw a broken promise with the failure to deliver on a new Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, which the coalition had promised to deliver. We have also seen other promises that the government made which it has not delivered on. It promised a Monash Children’s hospital for families in Melbourne’s south-east, a Ballarat helipad and a fully funded second hospital for Geelong, as well as fully funded upgrades to Box Hill, Bendigo, Castlemaine and Seymour hospitals.

All those Victorian families affected will be very disappointed that these promises have not been delivered to date.

Projects that Labor initiated were threatened. The Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre at the Austin Hospital is a very important project initiated by Labor, and it was only because there was a community outcry that the government in the end backed down and decided to fund that important project.

There are other health programs that support Victorian families. I would particularly like to highlight the Living Longer Living Stronger program that relates to senior Victorians. This is a strength-building program that assists elderly Victorians to deal with a lot of chronic conditions. It has helped many thousands of senior Victorians deal with conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis, as well as providing for the positive mental health and wellbeing of those seniors.

We have seen 17 000 older Victorians participate in this program. It is an excellent program, and when I have spoken to program participants they have spoken very highly of it.

However, in this year’s state budget the government decided to axe funding to that program. I am relieved that the Council for the Ageing has been able to continue to administer this program with its own funding, but this is only a short-term measure to keep the program going. Unless the state government steps in, I believe the program is at risk. This is another example of the failure of the Baillieu government to support Victorian families, whether they are families with young children, whether they are families with teenage children or whether they are in fact grandparents. We have seen many Victorian families extremely disappointed by this government.

Lastly, I want to turn to the issue of public transport because the Victorian families statement purports to talk about cost of living pressures. I have already mentioned a range of examples — there are many of them — of cuts to programs that have impacted on cost of living pressures. The one that takes the cake is yesterday’s announcement of an 8.6 per cent increase in public transport fares across metropolitan and regional services from next year. This is the largest single increase in almost a decade. The Minister for Public Transport claimed that he agonised over that decision, yet he then turned around and blamed the previous government for it. I found it interesting that he could claim to agonise over the decision yet also claim that it was the fault of the previous minister. That was very interesting in terms of the psychology of the current public transport minister.

We have seen commuters being slugged with hundreds of dollars extra per year, putting the lie to the government’s claim about addressing cost of living pressures. At the same time the government has scrapped many of the projects that would have improved our public transport system. We have seen premium station upgrades slashed. In my electorate alone Newmarket, Lalor, East Richmond and Northcote stations will miss out on planned upgrades.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – Mr Ondarchie would do well to listen, because these railway stations and communities are going to miss out on upgrades they would have received under the previous government. We have also seen the politicisation of safety issues in relation to level crossing upgrades.

We have seen good, working-class areas in Northern Metropolitan Region miss out on level crossing upgrades so that Ms Asher can deliver on an election commitment to the people of Brighton in relation to a railway crossing that is ranked no. 223 on the list.

We have seen many disappointments. The Victorian families statement is full of rhetoric and promises about improved services for Victorian families. What we have seen from the Baillieu government over the last 12 months is very little other than rhetoric. We have seen many broken promises. We have seen many programs slashed, and the government has indicated that there are more to come.

Today we are pleased to come into this chamber and remind members of the government of the existence of this Victorian families statement. If they are serious about the contents of this statement, then they need to lift their game. Their first 12 months have been an abysmal failure. They have been abysmal in terms of the failure to deliver on important services and programs on which Victorian families depend. What we are seeing here is the arrogance of members of the government who come in here and seek to defend a position that has seen their own constituents miss out time and again.

With those words, I commend the motion to the house.

It is a matter that the state Labor opposition treats very seriously because it relates to a significant report by the Office of Police Integrity (OPI) entitled Crossing the Line, which has exposed a great deal of political interference by the Baillieu government in the operations of Victoria Police. This report is a damning indictment of the way the Baillieu government has operated in its first 12 months of office.

The report chronicles in huge detail a systematic and orchestrated attempt — orchestrated from within the Deputy Premier’s office — to bring down the then Chief Commissioner of Police, Simon Overland. I concur with the comments made by Mr Viney that the then police commissioner, Mr Overland, is a person of integrity who conducted himself in an exemplary way in his role of tackling crime in this state. He left an important legacy to Victoria on those issues.

The findings of the report are very serious.

The report finds that the then Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Emergency Services, Bill Tilley, who is the member for Benambra in the Assembly, and a senior ministerial adviser in Mr Ryan’s office, Tristan Weston, were involved in an orchestrated attempt to bring down the police commissioner. A lot of unanswered questions arise from this report.

Mr David Davis sought to come in here and whitewash history. He made a number of claims that are not corroborated by the OPI report. Mr Davis asserted that the Deputy Premier and the Minister for Corrections, Mr McIntosh, had their names cleared by this report, and he made similar assertions in relation to the other staff members in those ministers’ offices and the Premier’s chief of staff. The report does not in fact do that. Page 9 of the report of the OPI makes that very clear where it says:

I emphasise that my investigation has not focused on the conduct of Minister Ryan or Mr Hindmarsh, neither of whom I have any jurisdiction to investigate.

The OPI’s jurisdiction is limited to serving members of the police. It was because Mr Weston was a seconded member of Victoria Police that the OPI had jurisdiction to investigate these matters.

There are a lot of unanswered questions arising from this report as to the role of Mr Ryan as well as the roles of other individuals, including the Premier’s chief of staff. These unanswered questions have been identified by the media: for example, in an article in the Sunday Herald Sun of 18 September, which says:

Michael Kapel is the most powerful unelected person in Spring Street.

The article goes on to talk about the then secret meeting between the former deputy commissioner of police, Sir Ken Jones, and the Premier’s chief of staff that occurred at Sir Ken’s home. That meeting is in fact referred to in the OPI’s report. The Sunday Herald Sun article goes on to quote the Premier, speaking in Parliament on 14 June in response to questions by the opposition, as having asserted:

Again I say my chief of staff has assured me that he listened to the deputy commissioner and he has assured me that no matters were raised which he believed warranted further attention.

The Premier’s statement seems to be contradictory to Sir Ken Jones’s own version of events, as he detailed them in an email that is reprinted in the OPI report.

Clearly there is some contradiction between Sir Ken Jones believing that the issues he raised with the Premier’s chief of staff were to be passed on to the Premier — that was certainly the impression he was left with — and the Premier asserting in the Parliament that nothing came of the meeting. The conclusion of all this in the article of the Sunday Herald Sun is:

The public deserves to know exactly what happened in the meeting. The Premier’s man must come forward and release a full account of what was discussed and why he decided to meet Sir Ken at a time when civil war was ripping apart police command.

Victorians deserve to be told the full truth behind this shambolic affair.

I agree with that. There are so many unanswered questions arising from this report.

Mr Tilley and Mr Weston were clearly involved in bringing down the Chief Commissioner of Police, but I believe, as Mr Viney asserted, that this goes all the way to the top and it is just the tip of the iceberg. Clearly the Premier’s chief of staff was involved in meetings and discussions around these issues. It just defies belief that the Premier had no knowledge of these matters.

It defies belief also that things were going on in the Deputy Premier’s own office that the Deputy Premier had no knowledge of. Since the report has come out, we have discovered that the Deputy Premier had a meeting with his parliamentary secretary in a coffee shop where they discussed a range of things. The OPI was not able to pursue questioning of the Deputy Premier around these issues to find out exactly what was discussed.

It defies belief that in the course of what I believe was a 40-minute meeting no discussion came up around the issues to do with the Chief Commissioner of Police, when virtually daily we had articles in the media around speculation building up that the government wanted to replace the Chief Commissioner of Police. It defies belief that the Deputy Premier and Mr Tilley would not have broached this subject that was being commented on daily around the chief commissioner and ultimately the issue of his replacement. Despite what Mr Davis asserted, the OPI report does not clear the Deputy Premier’s name, it does not clear Mr Kapel’s name and it does not clear a lot of very senior people in the Baillieu government from allegations of interference in the demise of the Chief Commissioner of Police.

We need to have these issues pursued. The state opposition has tried to have a committee established to investigate these matters further. What have we seen from members of the Baillieu government? We have seen them protect their own.

They have allowed Mr Tilley and Mr Weston to be the fall guys in this whole shambolic episode, but they have not allowed the Parliament to pursue these questions further.

We have had Mr Davis make assertions that government members have learnt lessons from this whole episode. I believe that the only lesson they have learnt from this is one of public relations, of how to try to spin their way out of this mess, how to try to better cover their tracks in the future and how to ensure that the OPI is not able to pursue these matters further.

Most recently we have had the situation of both the director of the OPI, Michael Strong, and his deputy, Paul Jevtovic, announcing their resignations, effective in the new year. I refer to an article in the Age of 1 December which reports on the proposed Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) and states:

It is understood that Mr Strong was upset after learning of the government’s intention to deny him a role with the commission by reading about it in the media.

Have government members learnt anything from this whole shambolic episode? It appears that they have not, because they have sought to hound Mr Strong out of office by making comments to the media that he was not going to be offered a role at the IBAC. In the same way as they sought to bring down Chief Commissioner Overland through systematic stories and leaks to the media, now we see that Mr Strong, the head of the OPI, has also decided to leave his post, again as a result of leaks to the media. Have government members learnt anything from this whole episode? I believe they have not.

The situation we now have in the anticorruption framework in Victoria is one where the most senior individuals in Victoria at the head of the anticorruption framework will soon leave their posts. We have had the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Jeremy Rapke, resign from his post. We have had Mr Overland resign from his post. Now we have had the senior leadership of the OPI resign from their posts.

We have had concerns raised by the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Dr Greg Lyon, SC, that there is now a vacuum in the fight against corruption after the resignations of the two most senior staff of the OPI. We have also had concerns expressed by the president of the Law Institute of Victoria, Caroline Counsel, about the resignations at the OPI. She has commented that these leave a big gap and that there is a vacuum at the head of the fight against corruption in Victoria. We have had concerns expressed also by a very prominent criminal barrister, Rob Stary. I quote from an article in the Australian of today, 7 December, where he is reported as having said:

… there was an ‘appalling’ perception surrounding the OPI and the slow introduction of the IBAC.

It goes on to report that Mr Stary:

… warned that no-one could confidently go to the OPI to make any kind of corruption complaint when it was both leaderless and directionless.

What have we had? We have had the situation of Baillieu government members having taken a hit because of this damning report by the OPI. What have they done in response? They have clearly not learnt anything at all from this report.

They have put out stories to the media to encourage Mr Strong to leave his post so that the OPI will have no further ability to pursue the government on these kinds of integrity issues. That will create a vacuum for longer than six months before IBAC is up and running.

I remind the house that the day he was sworn in Premier Baillieu said:

Accountability and transparency will be the principles that underpin our government.

What a joke! What we have seen from members of this government is that they have waited until the last sitting week of the Parliament this year to seek to introduce legislation to appoint an independent FOI commissioner. That legislation will not be in place until next year. We have had the situation where all FOI requests have been centralised through the Premier’s office.

I have had my numerous FOI requests to have access to the KPMG report on the Take a Break program refused, and I have had to resort to going to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to have that important report released. We have had delays in the establishment of IBAC. We have had ministers failing to answer thousands of questions on notice. We have had situations in which the Parliament has taken important bills into a committee stage and has been forced to sit until 3.30 a.m. to get answers to questions about, for example, how IBAC will operate in practice because ministers have refused to provide detailed answers to questions. We have had a failure to establish the government advertising review panel that the government had promised. We have seen friends and relatives of members of the government appointed to boards across Victoria. We have had parliamentary committees of the upper house forced to consider only government-initiated references. We have had scrutiny committees of the Legislative Council not able to meet even once in 12 months.

The Standing Committee on Legal and Social Issues Legislation Committee, of which I am a member, is yet to meet once to conduct any business of scrutiny of government. We have also had reduced time available for non-government parties to raise matters in the Legislative Council. So much for accountability and transparency in government!

This government is interested in running a secret state. I believe the OPI report is just the tip of the iceberg. There are clearly many issues arising from this report that are yet to be answered: questions around the Deputy Premier’s involvement in this whole sorry saga, questions around the chief of staff of the Premier and his involvement in this sorry saga and ultimately questions around the Premier’s own involvement in this sorry saga. This Parliament and the people of Victoria expect answers to these questions, and the state opposition will keep pursuing these issues until we get those answers.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s northern region office has been forced to cut $1 million from its budget, meaning that many staff members, including Reading Recovery tutors who resign or whose contract expires, are not to be replaced.

We are seeing on the one hand the Baillieu government bragging about its investment in early intervention programs and on the other cutting a vital early intervention program that assists children to gain the literacy and numeracy skills they need so they do not fall behind their peers at school.

On a recent visit to Victoria Dr Barbara Watson from New Zealand, who is a Reading Recovery trainer of 30 years experience, spoke of the enormous success this program has had both in Australia and worldwide. She was quoted in the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s publication Inspire of June 2011 as having said:

Literacy skills are an essential part of lifelong education, so every child should have a second chance if they need it.

That is a sentiment with which I strongly agree.

If the rest of the world can see the benefits in having such a program, it really begs the question why the Baillieu government cannot see it. I think one of the most fundamental things a government can do is provide young people with the ability to establish basic literacy and numeracy skills very early on in their childhood education to give them a chance later on in life. I call on the Minister for Education to financially support the Reading Recovery program at Mill Park Heights Primary School to ensure that this program continues and that young children struggling to read and write are afforded similar opportunities at other schools as well.

Ms Mikakos and Member for Richmond Richard Wynne visited the Richmond Recreation Centre today to discuss the Living Stronger Living Longer funding cut.

“Participants in Richmond have clearly made the case for the Baillieu Government to reinstate the funding as the program supports them maintain a healthy quality of life,’ Ms Mikakos said.

“In Parliament, Health and Ageing Minister David Davis refused to restore state funding for the successful strength and conditioning program for seniors.

“Funding for Living Longer Living Stronger lapsed in July this year, after the Baillieu Government failed to allocate money to the program in its May Budget.”

Ms Mikakos said this was the second time Mr Davis had refused to say he would restore funding for Living Longer Living Stronger program, letting down the 17,000 senior Victorians that benefit from the program.

“When I asked the Minister to reinstate the funding, Mr Davis refused to say he would despite saying the program had done ‘a lot of good work’,” she said.

“In fact the popular program has been proven to help fight arthritis, osteoporosis and other chronic diseases, as well as keeping seniors active and connected to their community.

“It also helps maintain mental and psychological wellbeing and can be used to fight depression.

“These benefits are why the Baillieu Government should reinstate funding for this important program and stand up for the health and wellbeing of older Victorians.”

Mr Wynne said the Council of the Ageing (COTA), which administered the program across Victoria, had continued to run the program with its own limited resources.

“COTA understand the positive impact Living Longer Living Stronger has on older Victorians, which is why they are striving to keep it running, but this is only a stop-gap measure,” Mr Wynne said.

“Unless Mr Davis addresses this issue immediately, 17,000 older Victorians will soon struggle to access strength and conditioning programs in Victoria.”

However, sex workers need to be afforded the same level of assistance as other workers in our state to ensure that as much as possible they are adequately protected.

I refer members to an excellent research brief prepared by the parliamentary library on this bill. It provides a very thorough and comprehensive snapshot of the long history of prostitution in Victoria. I do not propose to go through that long history, but I want to make just a few comments about it. Firstly, the brief gives a good historical overview in which we can see the shift in Victoria’s prostitution laws from prohibition to regulation over the last few decades. The policy of prohibition and criminalisation continued in Victoria until 1984 when the Planning (Brothels) Act 1984 formally decriminalised licensed brothels and regulated the industry.

As we are all no doubt aware, despite the introduction of a licensing system, unlicensed brothels continue to operate. We have a number of both licensed and illegal brothels in my electorate of Northern Metropolitan Region. How we know there are illegal brothels is that there have been media reports about some local government prosecutions involving these brothels. A number of my local councils have attracted some adverse media comment about these issues in recent times — for example, the Sunday Age reported on 16 October that an enforcement officer from the City of Darebin had been stood down as Victoria Police broadened its investigation into illegal brothels and the alleged payment of bribes to council staff. This was on top of the already uncovered secret payments of $130 000 between illegal brothels in the northern suburbs and an enforcement officer from the City of Yarra. That was reported in that same Sunday Age article.

Those types of media reports are obviously quite alarming to the community. It is alarming to me that this type of thing has occurred in my electorate — that there have been illegal brothels to which a blind eye has been turned by certain individuals. I would certainly hope this legislation would provide greater capacity to crack down on illegal brothels in the community. I think that would be the community’s expectation. I would hope that local councils draw upon and learn from the experience of the incidents I have just referred to and ensure that these types of practices are stamped out.

I also want to refer to some recent reforms that were made by the previous government. In early 2010 the then Labor government made changes to the Sex Work Act 1994 to allow Consumer Affairs Victoria inspectors to question people entering and leaving premises suspected of being illegal brothels to gain evidence that could be used to obtain court orders to shut down those illegal brothels.

We doubled the penalty for operating an illegal brothel to more than $14 000 and required licensed brothels to display signs warning that sex slavery is illegal. The previous government was concerned about issues surrounding sex trafficking, and that is why it made a reference to the last Parliament’s Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, of which I was a member.

Mrs Coote interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – Mrs Coote was also a member, and Mr Leane was a member. I believe we delivered an excellent report, which was entitled Inquiry into People Trafficking for Sex Work and which was tabled in this Parliament in June 2010. Whilst the reference given to the committee was related to sex trafficking and human rights violations in Victoria, it allowed us to consider other parts of the sex industry.

As part of the inquiry, for example, the committee looked at the mobility of sex workers, licensees and managers across legal and illegal brothels. I was shocked, as I am sure other members of the committee were, by the prevalence of sex trafficking in our state and also by the amount of movement of not only workers but management between the legal and illegal brothel sectors. The inquiry received evidence about the existence of illegal brothels in our state, and tragically it also found that an unquantifiable but significant number of women are believed to be sex trafficked in Victoria.

Given the findings of that report, while the introduction of this bill seems to be an attempt to address some issues in the industry, I am concerned that it does not go anywhere near far enough. To date I have been very disappointed that there has not been a formal response by the government to the committee’s report as to what measures it will take to implement the recommendations.

I do not believe the bill will be able to tackle the problems that are prevalent in this industry. I note that one of the report’s recommendations states that sex trafficking would be minimised if the Attorney-General’s department and not the police was put in charge of brothel regulation. Despite this being a bipartisan report, the government has ignored the recommendations of this very recent report and made Victoria Police the lead agency for enforcing laws relating to the sex work industry.

There have been recent media reports around the issue of sex trafficking, and I particularly draw attention to an article published in the Age of 22 November entitled ‘Plea to stop suspected traffickers running brothels’, in which the family of the late Abraham Papo, who was bashed to death after confronting an alleged standover man for a sex trafficking syndicate thought to have been holding his Korean girlfriend, is highlighted.

I take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences to the parents and family of the late Abraham Papo for the loss of what appears to have been a very courageous young man, who sought to assist a young woman who had been caught up in these terrible circumstances. The family has sought to raise greater awareness about the circumstances relating to their son’s case. It has also sought to draw greater attention to circumstances which I think would be shocking to the vast majority of the Victorian public — that is, that in this day and age we have a form of slavery in existence in our nation.

Centuries ago William Wilberforce, who is someone I admire greatly, took a courageous stand to stamp out slavery around the world. We like to think that is all in the dim, dark past of British and international history, and therefore it is truly shocking to think that in this day and age we still have people who are being trafficked and forced to work in terrible conditions to provide sexual services to men in our state.

I think these circumstances deserve greater public recognition and action by all of us and by governments at all levels.

I do not want to go into the horrific circumstances that are occurring in Victoria — I spoke about these matters at greater length when the report was tabled in the Parliament last year — but there are some horrible circumstances, and it is women, in particular women from South-East Asia, who are being trafficked to Australia through various rackets and provided to both legal and illegal brothels in Victoria. I urge the Baillieu government to take a more comprehensive approach in responding to these issues.

By contrast to what I see as a half-baked approach to this issue, I was very pleased to read yesterday that the federal Labor government has announced a $1.6 million commitment to tackle human trafficking, including sex and labour exploitation. In a media release issued yesterday by the federal Minister for Home Affairs, Mr O’Connor, four non-government organisations, each of which has a track record in delivering results for the victims of sex trafficking, will share in $1.4 million. One of the four successful organisations, with which I have had contact in the past, is Project Respect, which is based in Collingwood. I was very pleased to read that that organisation will be supported by the federal government in the very important work it does to support anti-trafficking activities and to support victims of trafficking. I will speak further about Project Respect later in my contribution because I think its work is very worthy.

I want to turn now to the system we have in place in terms of government regulation of the sex industry. Currently there are a number of agencies involved in regulating the Victorian sex industry. They include Consumer Affairs Victoria, Victoria Police and local government. I believe there has been longstanding ambiguity and in some cases buck-passing in regard to who is responsible for enforcement action relating to illegal brothels. Consumer Affairs Victoria has long argued that it is responsible for licensed brothels and that it has no powers in relation to the illegal sector as that is a police and local government matter. Victoria Police already has the power to take enforcement action in relation to all offences under the Sex Work Act 1994. In December 2008 Consumer Affairs Victoria entered into a memorandum of understanding with Victoria Police and the Municipal Association of Victoria to allow for coordinated and integrated enforcement of laws targeting illegal brothels.

The regulation of the illegal brothel sector was understood to be the work of local government, which has been known to use the services of private investigators to locate such establishments, and I know its investigatory techniques have attracted some media commentary in the past. I spoke before about the issues arising from some local government officials who have been under investigation in my electorate.

It is always important to note that when a government claims to be following through on its commitments — and it is claiming in this case that it is fulfilling particular election commitments — it is important that we drill down to the substance of what it is that it is actually doing by way of legislation. As I said before, this bill claims it will remove the confusion around the division of enforcement responsibilities, but I believe that where the government had room to build a mountain it has in fact built a molehill.

It could have gone far further in responding to the sex trafficking report that was tabled in the Parliament, but I believe it has taken half-measures in relation to this issue and there are still questions that need to be asked regarding the resources of Victoria Police, which I will come to a bit later on.

The bill confirms the functions of the director of Consumer Affairs Victoria insofar as it is the body responsible for the compliance and enforcement of the legal — that is, licensed — brothel sector. For example, it will continue to enforce offences in relation to children not being allowed in brothels, advertising, safe-sex practices, workers infected with a disease, issues around consuming liquor in brothels, administrative matters in regard to licences and other regulatory issues. If the director is made aware of allegations of an illegal brothel, they must forward this information to Victoria Police. Each respective local council will now only be responsible for enforcing planning laws where brothels are operating in breach of planning requirements.

They are able to take action in regard to breaches of the Planning and Environment Act 1987.

Currently section 86(1) of the Sex Work Act 1994 provides that proceedings for an offence against the act may only be brought by the director of Consumer Affairs Victoria, a person authorised by the director or a member of Victoria Police. Insofar as the main role of policing and enforcement with regard to illegal brothels is concerned, the bill amends section 86 of the Sex Work Act 1994 to make Victoria Police the lead agency for the enforcement of laws relating to the sex work industry. Victoria Police will now have the sole power to enforce the law in relation to the offences of carrying on business as a sex worker service provider without holding a licence or assisting in the commission of such an offence.

I find this curious given that the police have not wanted to play a role in regulating prostitution since the disbanding of the vice squad in the 1990s. In the past they have argued that local government and Consumer Affairs Victoria should be responsible. Most importantly, it has not been made clear what additional resources police will be given to take on this additional work. Despite this change, the second-reading speech for this bill states that:

Consumer Affairs Victoria will remain primarily responsible for monitoring the compliance of individuals licensed under the Sex Work Act. The bill ensures that Consumer Affairs Victoria retains powers to bring proceedings for offences relating to the licensing scheme for sex work service providers …

In effect Consumer Affairs Victoria will police legal brothels and police will regulate illegal brothels, which was already the case. I cannot really see what new ground is being broken by this bill. As I mentioned earlier, the Sex Work Act 1994 already provides the powerful Victoria Police with the ability to take enforcement action in relation to offences under the act. This bill, taken in context with what is already provided for under the legislation, does not do much more.

I will address the issue of police entry powers. Clause 9 is important and will insert proposed new section 78A into the principal act. This insertion will provide police members with specific entry powers where there are reasonable grounds to believe premises are being used for the operation of a brothel without a planning permit.

The bill provides Victoria Police members with the ability to apply to a magistrate for a warrant to search premises where a brothel is operating without a planning approval and to establish the admissibility of evidence obtained as a result of those powers in proceedings in relation to an offence against a section of the Planning and Environment Act 1987. These new provisions will cross over the work conducted by local government.

Proposed new section 78B provides that if this is done outside office hours, the Chief Commissioner of Police may authorise entry to the premises without a search warrant if they believe, on reasonable grounds, that the premises are being used to operate a brothel in contravention of section 126 of the Planning and Environment Act 1997. The chief commissioner must also believe on reasonable grounds that relevant evidence is likely to be lost if entry is delayed to the premises until a search warrant is obtained.

The effect of the bill is that brothels will now be considered illegal if they are unlicensed, or do not have a planning permit or both. It also means that Victoria Police will need to rely on advice from the relevant local council to determine if the premises are illegal. There are some issues in relation to matters of urgency. The mechanisms that will be available to Victoria Police in order to establish a breach under the act in order to gain access are unclear.

Clause 6 of the bill deals with matters in relation to the Business Licensing Authority Victoria and provides that where it is in the public interest the Business Licensing Authority must refuse an application for a licence to carry on business as a sex work service provider where that applicant has been convicted or found guilty of a disqualifying offence — that is, an indictable offence — that renders the grant of a licence to that person against the public interest. Previously only offences committed within the previous five years were taken into account.

I would be concerned, for example, if a person were to be convicted of sex trafficking and then some years down the track that same person was found to be running a legal brothel. The proposed amendment will hopefully respond to those types of issues.

The bill changes the reporting requirements of the banning notice regime for clients which commenced on 1 January this year. It was a regime introduced by the former Labor government as a pilot program for 12 months. The banning notices were to extend police powers so that police would be able to ban those persons seeking services from sex workers in a prescribed area in St Kilda for up to 72 hours. Penalties for breaching that included an on-the-spot fine of about $238 or a maximum fine of $2389 if a prosecution took place in court.

We now see the government seeking to claim that it is implementing an election commitment without first doing its homework.

As I said, this regime is a 12-month pilot program. Before the 12 months is even up and before any quantitative or qualitative data has been produced on the pilot’s effectiveness or otherwise, the coalition is steaming ahead and extending the regime for a further two years. We recognise this was an election commitment, but as this is a pilot program, I would have thought the government would have looked at reviewing the data and considering its merits when it nears completion. The government has not done this. I have to say this approach is concerning, because it demonstrates a lack of willingness to really look at qualitative approaches to law and order issues. A quick headline is what this government is all about. Coalition members were happy to make comments regarding spin when they were on this side of the house, but we have seen a great deal of spin from this new government to date and very little action.

The other matter I want to deal with is the issue around the proceeds of crime legislation.

Part 4 of this bill deals with amendments to schedule 1 of the Confiscation Act 1997. The changes expand the summary offences under the Sex Work Act 1994 to which the court-ordered forfeiture powers apply. The bill also amends schedule 2 of the Confiscation Act 1997 to insert new clauses to expand the offences for which automatic and civil forfeiture is available.

The amendments to the Confiscation Amendment Act 2010 are not related to sex work but propose to repeal changes made last year, which have not yet come into effect, for orders to defer a declaration of property interests. Effectively the changes in this bill will take the Confiscation Act 1997 back to what it originally was. This is apparently a response to Victoria Police concerns about spurious claims being opened up by the earlier changes. I would be interested in any further information the government can provide around these issues.

I come now to the critical issue of concern as I see it, and that is the issue of resources. I know that the issue of additional resources for Victoria Police is a concern held not only by the opposition but also by the Victoria Police Association. It is clear now that this bill aims to make Victoria Police the lead agency in dealing with issues affecting the brothel industry, yet the bill makes no reference to providing additional resources for Victoria Police to fulfil this role. This is quite concerning given the recent bungling of the government’s protective services officers regime, which we have seen has had a $50 million cost blow-out and is no closer to being implemented.

This new bill will put greater pressure on the workload of Victoria Police in responding to policing matters. I will revisit this issue later in the committee stage of the bill, because it is important that the government provides some reassurance on these matters.

The coalition’s election policy platform makes reference to the fact that gross human rights violations occur in both legal and illegal brothels in Victoria, but this is as deep as its policy, and now its legislation, goes. We have heard from the coalition government that it will deal with the exploitation of women, sex slavery and prostitution in a more concerted fashion but we have not seen that in this legislation. Sex slavery and prostitution is not just about law enforcement, it identifies a much larger social problem. I believe it requires a whole-of-government approach as it touches upon a range of complex issues. That is what the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee report tabled in Parliament last year found.

Sex workers require a great deal of help, and it is concerning to me that programs which have proven very successful in providing this much-needed support are at risk of losing their funding. The Pathways to Exit program, established in February last year, is run by the Inner South Community Health Service. This government-funded program is reported to have achieved outstanding results, with 31 per cent of women who participated having reduced or ceased sex work and 23 per cent having reduced or ceased drug use or accessed drug treatment. In addition, 65 per cent of participants were provided with counselling, 42 per cent went on to enrol in study, 27 per cent received housing support, 23 per cent had accessed employment services and 19 per cent were volunteering or running their own businesses.

I also want to say in relation to that matter that Martin Foley, the member for Albert Park in the Legislative Assembly, has been an excellent advocate of the program.

The program was funded through Consumer Affairs Victoria and the Department of Justice for two years, and that funding will expire in February 2012. It would be a great tragedy if the program fell through because of a government agency change, and I will be seeking some assurances from the government that it will continue funding this very successful program.

Another organisation of which I am aware and which I mentioned earlier in my contribution to the debate is Project Respect, which is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to empower and support women in the sex industry via outreach and intensive case management services. It was established in 1998 and specialises in providing support to victims of trafficking for prostitution through a number of outreach programs. I met with this organisation during the time Labor was in government, both when it was giving evidence to the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee and privately.

Earlier this year I wrote to the Minister for Women’s Affairs, Mary Wooldridge, about this organisation, and I received a response some six months later. As I noted in my letter, the demand for Project Respect’s services is increasing. In 2009-10 its two outreach workers were able to regularly visit 59 of Victoria’s 90 legal brothels, contact 546 women in the sex industry and provide 884 hours of case management support. There are estimated to be 10 000 women in the Victorian sex industry, so the challenge this organisation faces is immense, and I give it great credit for the work it has done to date. If it had some additional support, obviously it would be able to do even more work in this area. The issue I raised with the minister was the funding for this organisation. Recurrent funding would allow it to employ additional workers, improve its services and allow its outreach workers to visit up to 90 per cent of legal brothels in Victoria. It would also enable it to expand its services to include other sex industry sectors, such as escort agencies.

The committee’s inquiry was very supportive of the work of Project Respect, and it would be fair to say there was bipartisan support for strengthening funding to such organisations. However, I was very disappointed in the response I received from Minister Wooldridge. She assured me in her letter that the government will be offering assistance to sex workers, but in her response she made no specific commitment in relation to core funding to Project Respect that would enable it assist more women. In light of the federal government’s announcement yesterday about funding for this organisation, I hope the government moves on this issue and I hope the state government also moves by providing some additional resources.

In her written response the minister assured me that the government was considering the recommendations made by the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee through its inquiry, but I must point out that we are nearing the end of 2011, yet we still have no word on when the government will respond to the report tabled in June 2010. That response needs to happen soon, particularly in light of the bill before us. We need to have a response that will give people an assurance that there will be a broader response to the issues of sex trafficking beyond the measures contained in this legislation.

I am supportive of any measures that aim to tackle issues relating to prostitution and sex slavery. I commend the programs and support services that are out there in the community for the great work they do in providing opportunities and resources where otherwise there might be none. I sincerely hope the government does not let lapse such groundbreaking programs as Pathways to Exit and that it supports the work that that program and organisations like Project Respect offer in protecting some of the most vulnerable women in our community.

I will be looking with interest to see just how this government will achieve the expectations it has created with regard to dealing with issues around sex slavery and prostitution in Victoria. This is just one step on that road, but a great deal more work needs to be done.

In the last 12 years the Whittlesea Youth Commitment has been providing young people with the opportunity and support to complete year 12 or a Victorian certificate of education equivalent through training or employment. The partnership, which is between the City of Whittlesea, RMIT University and the Hume Whittlesea Local Learning and Employment Network and other stakeholders, has been extended for a further three years, and it aims to recognise and celebrate the true value of young people in our community.

I commend the Whittlesea Youth Commitment and its member stakeholders for the invaluable work they undertake, and I thank them for their involvement in numerous initiatives and projects that have led to positive outcomes for young people in the city of Whittlesea.

I am raising this matter by way of the adjournment debate because the response I received last week from Mrs Coote, who is the Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services, was completely unsatisfactory. My constituent was also very unhappy with the response she received.

My constituent has made many requests to the Department of Human Services for appropriate support, which includes behavioural therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, extra and appropriate respite and equipment costs for what specialists have advised her son Dean will need to remain at home. Dean’s parents want more than anything to continue to provide love and support to their son within the family home, but they are concerned that the support they have received to date is not appropriate and not adequate for Dean’s needs. Expert medical evidence of what Dean requires has been provided, but this appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Dean’s parents are understandably anxious about their ability to care for their son into the future. They are keen for their son to remain in their care at home and to continue to receive behavioural therapy from Ms Jeanette Coombes, who has achieved very positive outcomes, as well as other therapeutic support.

My constituent and her family are despairing of their situation. Her home has been regularly damaged by her son during his violent outbursts. Many local services, including respite services, have now refused to work with my constituent’s son because of his violent behaviour. Dean was recently hospitalised for a prolonged period because the family felt so helpless and had nowhere else to take him. It is an indictment that parents need to threaten to leave their son at a hospital’s emergency department to get some additional support. They then relinquished care to DHS for the next one and a half weeks after the hospitalisation, but the family then decided to bring him back home. As a result the family was offered some additional respite care hours per week and $3000 towards a behaviour assessment, even though the report will cost $7000 to complete.

The problem is that while Dean is in receipt of an individual support package the funding does not appropriately cover his needs.

My understanding is that there used to be greater flexibility under the previous government as to how individual support packages could be used. This was certainly the experience of Dean’s family. Funds not used for respite, for example, could be used for other services. The family had some discretion about these matters.

I call on the minister to provide appropriate supports and restore flexibility to the integrated support packages so that parents such as my constituents, who desperately want to continue to provide the best care for their son at home, can do so. The family particularly wishes to use funds that have been allocated for respite funding to be reallocated to appropriate behaviour therapies for Dean, including a behaviour assessment to be completed to help the family learn how to better manage Dean’s behaviour, but the family has been advised to date that this is not possible.

While I share that motivation with them, I am in the fortunate position of being adequately remunerated for my work, and I believe SACS workers should also be adequately remunerated for their work.

I find it astounding that in this day and age we still have a situation where there is an 18 per cent pay gap between men and women. This is a phenomenal disparity that urgently needs to be addressed. At a time when society has changed and we have evolved from having a traditional breadwinner to a situation where both partners in a relationship contribute fully in different ways, the reality of today’s society should be reflected in pay equity. There are 150 000 SACS workers in Australia, of whom 120 000 are women. Workers in this sector have been underpaid for too long because their work has been viewed as being so-called ‘women’s work’. The SACS industry is predominantly made up of non-government organisations that receive government funding to provide various services to the community.

SACS workers are employed by community groups such as the Salvation Army, Wesley Mission, Yooralla, Melbourne Citymission, Scope and many other organisations that have a great deal of support from the community because of the work they do.

SACS workers who are members of the ASU (Australian Services Union) work in various roles across the industry, including in youth refuges, women’s refuges, family support services, disability services, community legal centres, employment and training services, other services like Job Futures, Aboriginal organisations, community and neighbourhood centres, family day care centres, community transport services, HACC (home and community care) services, environmental organisations and many other bodies. This can be challenging work, because it frequently involves working with people in crisis situations — for example, working with victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.

It involves supporting people with disabilities or counselling families who can be in quite dire circumstances.

A number of these workers, including youth and community development workers and those who work in the HACC program, work within the sectors covered by my shadow portfolio responsibilities. I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of them during the course of the year. Their passion and commitment to young people and those who are supported through HACC services, including elderly and disabled people, are commendable.

Labor has a strong record of achievement and significant investment in increasing opportunities, recognising hard work and supporting actions to improve pay equity. During the course of her contribution the Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services, Andrea Coote, sought to rewrite history.

I think it is important to give a very quick overview about what actually occurred last year. I was proud to be a delegate at the June 2010 Victorian Labor state conference when the then Premier, John Brumby, committed to supporting the SACS national pay equity case. He made a specific commitment of $200 million over four years to implement this commitment.

In response to this commitment VCOSS (Victorian Council of Social Service) issued a media release on 19 June 2010, which says:

The Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) today applauded Premier John Brumby’s commitment to fully fund the outcome of the national pay equity case for the community sector in Victoria.

‘This is great news for the community sector … It tells tens of thousands of workers in Victoria that their work is strongly valued’.

‘It also delivers certainty for VCOSS member organisations, in knowing that when pay rises are granted, they will be able to maintain their staffing and the diverse range of services and programs to vulnerable and disadvantaged Victorians’.

In the media release there was a call to the then state opposition to make a similar commitment. Let us be clear about this: without former Premier Brumby’s commitment, the coalition would not have done anything in this area.

During the state election Victorian Labor issued an election policy entitled A Fairer Victoria — Real Support Real Gains. In a press release it said:

We believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

John Brumby was reported to have said at the time that that was why a future Brumby Labor government would back Fair Work Australia’s position on this pay claim. He also said:

We will factor in any wage increases to our service agreements with community services organisations and ensure those wage increases are passed on to workers.

This emotionally taxing labour — often performed by women — is critical to the fabric of our community.

And the value of this labour is not always reflected in the pay they receive.

The coalition moved to match this commitment. In days prior to the election the then shadow Minister for Community Services, Mary Wooldridge, gave an assurance to VCOSS and members of the ASU that if the cost of delivering on the Fair Work Australia decision was in excess of $200 million, the Baillieu government would meet the shortfall — –

Mrs Coote interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – She certainly did a very good job. I am looking forward to Ms Pulford summing up the debate after lunch.

In an interview the shadow Minister for Community Services, Mary Wooldridge, did with VCOSS, CEO Cath Smith on 24 November 2010 she said:

I know VCOSS has said it thinks it will be more than $50 million, and the ASU (Australian Services Union) and (other) unions have said that as well … We’ve been very clear: we’ll be making financial commitments in our policies in relation to supporting that claim and, if it’s more than that, then we will be funding and supporting it.

That was a pretty clear-cut commitment to implement the case before Fair Work Australia without any specific provisos or limitations around a particular quantum. However, in its March submission to Fair Work Australia the Baillieu government argued that services would be cut and jobs would be lost if the sector’s pay claim was successful.

Honourable members interjecting.

Ms MIKAKOS – I will be coming back after lunch, Mrs Coote.

True to form, the Baillieu government has gone back on its commitment and broken its promise to VCOSS workers, just like it did to Victoria’s teachers. On 8 June this year I attended, with many of my colleagues — –

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.

My contribution to the debate was interrupted by the lunch break. I know everyone requires a mental health break occasionally, and after last night’s farce I would not deprive anybody of an hour for a mental health break, particularly for the staff in this building.

I was proud earlier this year to attend with many of my Labor colleagues the Australian Services Union’s national day of action for equal pay for community sector workers. Despite the rain, there was a significant turnout to that rally. The rally was held in response to the decision of Fair Work Australia on 16 May that social and community services workers are not receiving equal pay and that a significant cause of this pay gap is gender as well as other factors. I have been pleased to see that the federal government has been willing to move quickly on this issue. The Prime Minister announced on 10 November that the Gillard federal government will commit $2 billion of additional funding to support the approximately 150 000 SACS workers in Australia, who, as I indicated earlier, are some of the lowest paid workers in the social and community services sector.

It has been recognised by the federal government that there is a need to move on pay equity, and there are significant and tangible moves afoot at the federal level.

However, the SACS workers and the delivery of services and programs depend on state government funding as well. That is why Ms Pulford has moved this very good motion today. The motion relates to the backflip by the Baillieu government, which represents the harsh reality of what this government is about — that is, service cuts and jobs cuts. I am very concerned that the government has made promises in this area with no intention of following through on them. The sentiments around the issues of supporting pay equity which were earlier expressed by the parliamentary secretary, Mrs Coote, also need to be supported financially. The government needs to put its money where its mouth is, so to speak.

The point I want to conclude on is the following comment made by the Australian Services Union assistant secretary, Lisa Darmanin, in a media release of 16 November:

Community workers are committed to being there for vulnerable Victorians and those in crisis, but the Baillieu government’s broken promises of adequate support and funding for this sector puts help at risk for all of us. If caring work was properly funded, community workers could continue to be there for those in need.

Fair Work Australia has already ruled that the reason people who work in this sector are paid less is because the industry is dominated by women. This is unfair. People who work to improve the lives of those with disabilities, victims of domestic violence and vulnerable children want to see a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

That quote sums up very well what this debate is all about.

If we are serious about supporting those workers who work with the most vulnerable in our community and we want to ensure that they do not leave the workforce because they feel they are undervalued, then we need to ensure that they are appropriately remunerated. Achieving equal pay for community sector workers is crucial in ensuring that the sector can deliver the quality services that are so important to our community. This government is failing SACS workers and the people who rely on those workers each and every day, and I urge the house to support this motion and to support SACS workers today.

Mr Lenders — That’s a very good name.

Ms MIKAKOS — I agree with Mr Lenders that it is a very appropriate name. This is a report that is truly astonishing in its scope. It outlines the breadth of corruption, collusion and underhanded practices engaged in by senior members of the government — both ministers and their staff — to orchestrate the demise of the most senior police officer in this state. The report makes it very clear on page 9 that it does not exonerate the Deputy Premier, Peter Ryan, in any way. The OPI makes it clear that it had no jurisdiction to investigate ministers or their ministerial staff who were not serving members of Victoria Police.

There is a whole series of unanswered questions that the government has worked to dodge since the report was tabled in this Parliament, including questions about what knowledge the Minister for Police and Emergency Services had about various meetings that occurred between Sir Ken Jones and other individuals. There were background briefings and off-the-record comments being made to a whole series of journalists. There were meetings involving the Minister for Corrections and meetings involving the Premier’s chief of staff, Mr Michael Kapel, who secretly met with Sir Ken Jones at Sir Ken’s home on 16 February this year.

A whole series of issues arising from this report have not been responded to, and still lurk in the public’s mind. I believe the Victorian people deserve some answers to these issues. The government can duck and weave as much as it likes on these issues, but they will not go away. The government claimed that it was going to hold itself to a higher standard. In opposition the coalition made a whole series of statements around issues of openness, accountability and transparency, and what have we seen since it has been in government?

We have seen the farce of this chamber spending hours upon hours last night in committee on the legislation establishing the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission — one of the most important pieces of legislation to come before this house all year — and the minister completely refusing to answer questions around how that body will operate and what further pieces of legislation might be coming before the Parliament, to the point of the absurdity of the house sitting until 3.30 in the morning and the Victorian public and the house still being none the wiser about the operation of that legislation.

We have had the situation in the last two days of the Minister for Housing, Ms Lovell, distributing thousands of letters to petitioners and refusing to answer questions in this Parliament — showing complete disrespect to this house — around the circumstances relating to the letter being circulated, how it was distributed and who paid all those costs, given that the letter was written on the minister’s letterhead.

We have seen today and yesterday the Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Ryan Smith, refusing to answer questions regarding shareholding issues where there was a clear conflict of interest between his private share ownership and decisions made that relate to his portfolio.

What we are seeing from this government is a complete disregard for standards of integrity. The Office of Police Integrity report is just the tip of the iceberg. What it has done is give the Victorian people a taste of what is really going on behind the scenes of this government.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.

Children and Early Childhood Development Minister Wendy Lovell has been caught out not keeping her word in the wake of the Federal Labor Government’s recent announcement of more occasional childcare places in Victoria.

Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Children and Young Adults Jenny Mikakos said Ms Lovell had previously stated the Baillieu Government would provide funding for occasional childcare if the Federal Government did.

“The Federal Government has announced approximately 250 new occasional childcare places for Victoria, but the Baillieu Government is yet to deliver on its promise,” Ms Mikakos said.

“Ms Lovell initially ruled out providing funding in response, but this week in Parliament she said she is yet to make a decision.

“…once we understand the full impact of the federal government’s announcement, we can then make informed decisions (regarding further state government funding).” (10 November, 2011)

“Why is it that Ms Lovell has taken so long to decide if her Government supports our children?

“Centres are already making decisions at the moment about whether programs will continue next year and about fee levels, so Ms Lovell must immediately provide some certainty to the parents and the staff who have been desperately seeking information about this issue.

“Ms Lovell must clarify what her Government’s position is in the light of the new funding from the Federal Government.

“Will Ms Lovell finally invest in occasional childcare in Victoria, or will she continue to deny families from across Victoria access to flexible, affordable care close to home?”

More than 9000 children attend child care services through the Take-a-Break program in 225 community centres, employing 140 workers across Victoria.

Just over six years ago the Victorian government offered a formal apology to forgotten Australians. Two years ago at Parliament House in Canberra the Australian government apologised to forgotten Australians and former child migrants. These were important milestones for forgotten Australians and the broader community. It is difficult to place an exact number on the many thousands of Victorian children who grew up or spent part of their childhood in institutional care in Victoria in the last century.

Whilst I accept that each of us may approach the issue of how to respond to the provision of compensation to former wards of the state differently, I believe the concern about the harm suffered is collective at heart. Placing children in an institutionalised environment in the past was seen as a simple solution to what we now know to be a failure of society to deal with complex social problems. We know that the experience in care was not, for many children, a good one. We know that many suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their carers and that many have endured a lifetime of deep emotional hurt, anger and sadness. It is important that this damage, hurt, anger and sadness be acknowledged and that we carry forward the knowledge that we have come by to ensure that such practices are never repeated again.

On 30 August 2004 the Senate Community Affairs References Committee tabled the report Forgotten Australians, which highlighted some terrible cases of abuse and neglect of children who were under the provision of out-of-home care services in Victoria and across Australia. The report provided some very unpleasant insights into the life experiences of many people who are now adults who spent all or part of their childhood in some form of institutional care across Australia. The report raised significant social justice issues and revealed a litany of neglect, physical and sexual abuse and criminal assaults perpetrated on vulnerable children in state care in Victoria and across Australia.

In reflecting on what I would say in this debate today, I decided not to refer to any particular personal story. I came to that decision because I did not think that one or two personal stories could properly encapsulate the shared personal stories of horrific treatment experienced by some children whilst in state care.

The stories that I read were truly appalling, but I believe that each person’s experience was different and the harm that they experienced was unique to each of them. I doubt that I could keep going in my contribution if I were to quote from those stories. We saw earlier today the level of emotion that is felt by people around these issues. Reading this report makes for shocking reading. It is terrible to think that children who should have been loved and cherished were in fact subjected to abuse and neglect. This is a shameful history that needs to be acknowledged by our nation.

The report made a number of recommendations, one of those being for the states, territories, churches and agencies to provide a formal statement of apology to all care leavers who, for whatever reason, were hurt or experienced stress as a result of their being placed in state care.

On 9 August 2006 former Labor Premier of Victoria Steve Bracks moved a motion in the Victorian Parliament, saying amongst other things:

We take the opportunity provided by the release of this report to express our deep regret and apologise sincerely to all of those who as children suffered abuse and neglect whilst in care and to those who did not receive the consistent loving care that every child needs and deserves.

I remember that day quite vividly; it was an extremely emotional day for all involved, but particularly for the former wards of state, many of whom came to Parliament House and watched the public apology from the gallery and the marquee set up outside. On that day I was proud my party had initiated an apology whilst it was in government. I was also proud as a Victorian that the apology motion was passed unanimously. Understandably no apology will ever erase the distressing experiences that many of those children, now adults, endured and the subsequent detrimental effect it has had on their lives. Nevertheless, it was an important first step.

When the doors of the last government-run institution, the Allambie Reception Centre for juvenile wards of the state, closed in 1990, so too did the doors close on that form of institutional care. Yet whilst that form of institutional care may be a thing of the past, the effect it continues to have on those adults is lifelong. This is why the motion before us today is so important. I want to acknowledge the lobbying efforts of the Care Leavers Australia Network, who have for many years raised community awareness of the plight of care leavers and told many tragic personal stories.

The motion calls for an inquiry into the benefits of establishing a compensation scheme for adults who suffered abuse, neglect or a lack of care in out-of-home care. The scheme would be developed as an alternative to the current form of compensation, where victims can only make claims for damages, which is often an expensive, risky and drawn-out process. This motion deals with a complex and sensitive issue.

The previous Labor government was respectful of the right of people to seek compensation for the abuse and neglect they had experienced. It took the view that due to the complexity and detail of each person’s story, each case should be looked at on an individual basis. The Labor opposition will be supporting this motion because this reference would provide an opportunity for these issues to be further examined in detail — I am assuming that the inquiry would consider both the cost and the benefits of such a scheme.

Obviously the likely budgetary impacts could only be assessed by the government of the day, but it should be able to appropriate the funds to implement any inquiry recommendations.

The starting point to any inquiry would be to acknowledge that no two care leavers are the same and none has been affected in exactly the same way. The terms of reference should look at the issue of compensation in its broadest sense, not only looking at financial compensation but also at practical support and assistance that the government could provide to affected care leavers, such as housing, life skills, health, including dental benefits, and other forms of practical support. It would be about providing support across a person’s life journey. I would expect an inquiry to consult broadly and to hear from various relevant experts as well as from care leavers themselves, who could make recommendations as to the financial and non-financial support that could be offered.

I would also expect that the inquiry would look at the various models that have already been put in place across the jurisdictions in response to these issues.

It is worth noting that the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee Review of Government Compensation Payments report that was tabled in the federal Parliament on 6 December 2010 pointed out that some inequity arises from the variable terms of state schemes with respect to their eligibility requirements, methods of determining compensation and levels of compensation — and Ms Hartland referred to some of these inequities and different approaches across the jurisdictions in her contribution.

With those comments, the Labor opposition will support this motion seeking to provide a reference to the Law Reform Committee to inquire further into these issues.

Our support for this motion should not be taken as prejudging the outcome; we would need to see the recommendations that would come out of this inquiry — assuming the government allows it to go ahead, and that is now looking doubtful — before forming a view on the merits of the recommendations themselves. But we take the view that the issues relating to various forms of support for care leavers should be looked at; the time has come for such an inquiry to proceed.

The previous Victorian government chose to continue what remains the current practice of settling claims against the state for abuse whilst in state care on a case-by-case basis. However, it set up a specific care leaver service designed to assist care leavers in overcoming barriers in bringing such claims. An article published in the Age of 19 September 2011 referred to 75 cases having been settled with former care leavers who were physically and sexually abused in Victorian children’s homes. It referred to solicitor Angela Sdrinis, who said, ‘Negotiations have stalled under the coalition government’.

I am concerned by that comment, as I am aware that many care leavers are elderly and many have poor health.

Earlier I referred to the bipartisan motion of apology passed by this Parliament in 2006. In his contribution to that debate the then Leader of the Opposition, Ted Baillieu, stated:

… if we are elected to government, we will undertake immediate and comprehensive consultation with those affected to ensure that needed services and support are provided where and as required.

In his contribution the Leader of The Nationals, Peter Ryan, said:

The Nationals strongly endorse the apology which has been extended. However, I must say we think the job is only part done. We think the issue of compensation to these people must also be explored.

He went on to say with regard to compensation that:

… the state of Victoria is also obliged to investigate a scheme or schemes which would deliver that justice to those people.

In a letter to Ms Angela Sdrinis of Ryan Carlisle Thomas dated 21 May 2007, Mr Ryan wrote:

Establishing an appropriate compensation fund for former state wards is the just, honourable and equitable thing for the Victorian government to do.

That is a ringing endorsement for this inquiry if ever I have heard one. The reasons given by Mrs Coote, as the Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services, on behalf of the coalition government for it now not supporting this motion and an inquiry are unconvincing. The coalition clearly created an expectation among care leavers that when it came to office it would take action in this area and, at the very least, enable such an inquiry to proceed. Given the expectations that have been created, it is understandable that people are upset today.

If this motion is supported, I expect the inquiry will not cover the same ground as Forgotten Australians, as Mrs Coote has claimed. She claimed that the inquiry would mean the process would go on for years and that there would be no conclusion, yet Ms Hartland’s motion calls for a report to be delivered within 12 months.

I know Mrs Coote quite well and believe her to be a genuinely compassionate person, and her compassion was shown in her contribution to the debate on the motion for an apology in 2006. I believe that today she was given the unenviable task of defending the indefensible.

When we look at the quotes I referred to from the 2006 debate, at what the coalition’s position was then and also at Mr Ryan’s comments in 2007 to the solicitor Ms Sdrinis, we see that an expectation was clearly created that an inquiry would be conducted and that further support would be provided.

It is important to acknowledge the work that has been done in the past few years to support care leavers. In the 2008-09 state budget the previous Labor government announced $7 million over four years to provide a new service for former wards of state, which has been referred to by previous speakers.

The Open Place program, a new statewide support service run by Berry Street, commenced on 18 March 2010. This service is expressly for the forgotten Australians and provides a range of specialist services that meet their particular needs. The service provides a single access point for obtaining advice on available services, including housing, mental health, aged-care and drug and alcohol services, counselling, literacy and numeracy programs and dental and medical services. The service also provides assistance for those wishing to gain access to records kept about their time in care or to make contact with lost family or friends. I understand that there are also suitably trained professionals on hand to provide the advice and information needed to assist with legal claims.

This initiative was a significant step towards acknowledging past failures in care and assisting those affected to deal with the legacy of their childhood experiences, but I am concerned that this important service is now at risk.

Open Place was developed in consultation with forgotten Australians and is hosted by Berry Street, together with its partner organisation Relationships Australia. It was reported in the Age of 19 September that Open Place was forced in September this year to freeze all individual grants after demand for health funds had increased sixfold in the preceding 18 months. I understand that currently 1450 people are registered with the program and that the register will reopen in the next financial year.

It is an important program that should be supported by the Baillieu government, and I was pleased to hear Mrs Coote, as parliamentary secretary, invite Berry Street and care leavers to have discussions with her about this issue. It is my understanding that the minister has been well aware of these issues for some time, so I was surprised that Mrs Coote was not aware of the problems with funding and some of the other issues Ms Hartland touched upon.

I sincerely hope the Baillieu government is not deterred in its support of such services that assist forgotten Australians simply because demand has increased.

As a lasting memorial of our community’s recognition of all the children who grew up in institutional care in Victoria, the former Labor government, in partnership with the commonwealth government, committed $30 000 towards a memorial located at Southbank. That was an important step taken to acknowledge the personal stories and histories of the forgotten Australians. Another memorial has been erected at Deakin University in Burwood at the site of the former Allambie Reception Centre and Kildonan Children’s Home.

Whilst it is important to continue to support the forgotten Australians, we also need to ensure that the pain and hurt they suffered is never repeated in the future. In July 2009 the previous Labor government marked the start of a long-term reform program for out-of-home care, delivering more foster, residential and kinship placements for children. In the 2009-10 budget $135 million was allocated over four years to our reform program for Victoria’s out-of-home care system, focusing on, amongst other things, expanding placement capacity, addressing safety and quality issues and highlighting culturally appropriate services. In last year’s budget we provided $34.8 million over four years to provide more home-based care and residential care placements, to continue the therapeutic residential care pilot, to provide further funding to Aboriginal kinship care services, to boost health services for troubled young people and to boost places in secure welfare facilities.

We need to ensure that children in the care of the state receive the love, nurture, support and opportunities that we as citizens give to our own children. As I have already mentioned, an apology is only the first step.

The feelings of loss of identity and family, the feelings of abandonment and fear and the lack of trust in authority are all things that are not easily addressed. Abuse and neglect need to be acknowledged and responded to.

In opposition the Victorian coalition committed its full support to those children, many of whom are now adults. One would expect that commitment to extend into government through appropriate resourcing of programs such as Open Place and through other means of financial and practical support. The Premier and Deputy Premier should live up to the statements they made in this Parliament in 2006 and, at the very least, enable this inquiry to proceed. For the reasons I have outlined, the Labor opposition will support this motion.

This report has already forced the Deputy Premier’s senior ministerial adviser, Tristan Weston, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Emergency Services, Bill Tilley, the member for Benambra in the Assembly, to resign. It is now time that the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, the Deputy Premier himself, resigns. It is beyond belief that Mr Ryan says he had no idea of the campaign being waged within his very own office to bring down the independent police commissioner. If Mr Ryan is not dishonest, then he is grossly incompetent. Either Tristan Weston is a rogue operator acting on his own, which means that the minister failed in his duties to ensure that his office and staff were conducting themselves in an appropriate manner, or the minister is also involved.

Page 9 of the report reads:

… Mr Weston appears to assert that some of his conduct was implicitly condoned by Minister Ryan.

It goes on to say that Minister Ryan:

… emphatically denies that he was aware of, condoned or approved …

any conduct of Mr Weston that could be characterised as improper.

How is it that the Deputy Premier did not know about key meetings between his own parliamentary secretary, a political adviser working for him in his office and Sir Ken Jones? How is it that he did not know about all the phone calls that were being made to journalists, day after day, undermining the police commissioner? How is it that the Deputy Premier was left out of the loop when Tristan Weston, Bill Tilley and Sir Ken Jones said he was most definitely in? How can the Deputy Premier deny all knowledge of the so-called deal regarding the withdrawal of Sir Ken Jones’s resignation when Mr Weston said he briefed both the Deputy Premier and his chief of staff on the matter?

Minister Ryan’s emphatic denial of Mr Weston’s statements is a direct contradiction of statements made by Mr Tilley.

The then Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Emergency Services told the OPI that the Deputy Premier was aware of his visit to Sir Ken Jones’s house to discuss withdrawing Sir Ken’s resignation. The Deputy Premier subsequently told the OPI that he was not aware of this meeting, nor was he aware of the approach to persuade Sir Ken to withdraw his resignation, so we have to ask just who misled the OPI.

Mr Ryan has blamed Tristan Weston. He has blamed Bill Tilley. He has blamed Simon Overland. He has blamed everyone, including the media — but not himself. After all his efforts in pointing the finger, Mr Ryan now blames his faulty recollection. In an extraordinary media statement, released jointly with Mr Tilley yesterday, he conceded that apparently they both stand by the evidence they have given to the inquiry and that they have acted with integrity. The problem here is that if both Mr Ryan and Mr Tilley believe they are correct, clearly one person is not.

One person has been lying, and it is important we find out exactly who — –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Ramsay) — Order! I have given Ms Mikakos some latitude in relation to making a statement on a published report. With the terminology of ‘lying’ Ms Mikakos has headed into accusations. The Deputy Clerk has raised a concern with me that Ms Mikakos is treading on fairly thin ice in some of the commentary she is making. She has raised a number of questions in a statement on a report, and I ask her to be careful with her terminology, particularly when speaking of members in the other place.

Ms MIKAKOS – I am speaking on the report. I may not be quoting chapter-and-verse pages and references in the report, because 5 minutes will not allow me to do that, but I am commenting on the substance of the report in the contribution I am making.

Mrs Peulich — On a point of order, Acting President, the member knows full well that it is against the standing orders to reflect on a member of this chamber or the other chamber except by means of a substantive motion. This is not a substantive motion, and therefore I ask that you uphold the point of order and draw her back to making comments which are acceptable within the rules of the standing orders.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Ramsay) — Order! I was actually going to do that, given the opportunity, before Mrs Peulich raised a point of order. Certainly the report does not indicate that the Deputy Premier was lying in any way, shape or form, so I tend to agree with Mrs Peulich. Ms Mikakos is to return to making her statement on the report.

Ms MIKAKOS – I refer members to page 9 of the OPI report, which says:

I emphasise that my investigation has not focused on the conduct of Minister Ryan or Mr Hindmarsh, neither of whom I have any jurisdiction to investigate.

Clearly this report has not been able to vindicate the Deputy Premier, his chief of staff nor the Premier’s chief of staff, because the OPI was not able to investigate those individuals.

Mrs Peulich — On a point of order, Acting President, the member has continued to flout your ruling made only a few seconds ago. I ask that you uphold the ruling you made.

Ms MIKAKOS – On the point of order, Acting President, I just quoted from the report, which says that the OPI did not have the jurisdiction to investigate the individuals I am referring to. These individuals have subsequently gone out and claimed that they have been vindicated by this report when they have not.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Ramsay) — Order! I was seeking advice from the Deputy Clerk in relation to a previous point of order, so I did not hear what was said. I apologise to Mrs Peulich. I ask Ms Mikakos to continue, given the time she has left.

Mr O’Brien — On the point of order, Acting President, nothing in the section that the member has quoted from the report provides any basis to any imputation against any member of Parliament. I ask that she withdraw — –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Ramsay) — Order! That is not a point of order; in fact I ruled on that previously.

Ms MIKAKOS – I am not quite sure whether government members are rising to Bill Tilley’s defence or Peter Ryan’s defence, but I am sure we will find out in tomorrow’s newspapers. This is an important report, which describes serious misconduct by senior members of the Baillieu government. Members opposite should be embarrassed. They should be hanging their heads in shame at the contents of this report, rather than trying to waste time during the 5 minutes I have allocated to me. There are numerous instances referred to in the report that raise issues and further questions. This report is just the tip of the iceberg. Clearly there are further issues that need to be explored by this Parliament and by the people of Victoria to get to the bottom of this. Peter Ryan’s ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’ approach is just not good enough for the Deputy Premier of our state.

Hon. D. M. Davis interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS — I  have been waiting for a while; that is why I am so pleased. The matter I wish to raise is my concern that the Living Longer Living Stronger strength training program for seniors has not received any funding in this year’s state budget. The Living Longer Living Stronger program allows many seniors to maintain muscle strength and improve their fitness and balance. It assists in managing diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis and other chronic diseases, as well as keeping seniors active and connected to their communities.

Strength training also helps maintain mental and psychological wellbeing and can be used in treating depression.

The Council on the Ageing (COTA) has been running the program since 2000, and it benefits approximately 17 000 senior participants annually in around 120 centres across Victoria. COTA could offer it to a lot more seniors if it were funded. This program is a proven, popular and cost-effective program, so it is a mystery why the government decided not to support it

this year. Between 2003 and 2010 the Labor government approved funding for strength training initiatives totalling almost $800 000 for the Seniors Go for Your Life initiative. This funding allowed the program to continue into 2011. COTA has continued running this program using its own resources, but there is a limit as to how long this situation can continue.

I remind the minister that he was quoted in the August edition of Fifty-Plus newspaper as saying:

… the Go for Your Life program was funded for a time limited period and was found to have limited outcomes.

He went on to say:

… the focus and priorities of the new government were different.

If the minister believes benefit to over 17 000 senior participants annually is a ‘limited outcome’, then I would be interested in hearing what his criteria for success are. The previous government funded this and other strength training programs because we recognised the benefit that weight and fitness programs can provide to older people. I am concerned that the failure to continue this funding will mean that many seniors will have fewer opportunities to maintain an independent and healthy lifestyle. I ask the minister to reinstate funding to the Living Longer Living Stronger program to ensure that Victorian seniors are given an opportunity to participate in healthy activities that will enhance their quality of life and ability to live independently.

Minister Lovell has been trolling around the state opening many projects funded and commenced by the former Labor government — with no acknowledgement of that fact. The minister has sought to disguise her underachievements by claiming Labor’s achievements as hers. Last week the minister opened two children’s centres in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. She claimed that the Victorian coalition government had contributed $1.95 million towards the Laurimar activity centre and $500 000 to the Gowanbrae community and children’s centre when in fact both projects were fully funded by the former Labor government.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Danielle Green, Lily D’Ambrosio and Christine Campbell, Assembly members for Yan Yean, Mill Park and Pascoe Vale respectively, former Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development Maxine Morand and the local communities and local councils involved on achieving a great outcome for the northern suburbs.

Given that dedicated funding for new children’s centres has now gone, few new children’s centres will receive funding from the Baillieu government. The minister should stop gilding the lily and start delivering for Victoria’s children.

I have received many emails from concerned local families who are anxious about the future of this program. These families have explained to me the enormous positive impact this program has had on the educational development of their children.

The member for Thomastown in the Assembly has met with many of the affected families, and she has been a terrific advocate for this local school community. The former Labor government was committed to the future of the IDEA program and allocated $350 000 to build new state-of-the-art classrooms for these children. Thankfully, the Baillieu government is allowing this new building to proceed, but it has not committed to doing any more. It refuses to fund this program, no matter how well regarded and successful it may be. We are aware that the Baillieu government has already shown its true colours in relation to education, having slashed $481 million from education programs — –

Mr Ondarchie — On a point of order, President, I remind you of your guidance to members over the last couple of sitting weeks about the adjournment debate. On one occasion you reminded me about using the adjournment debate to simply slam the other party. I draw your attention to Ms Mikakos’s contribution today, particularly in light of her most recent comment.

Ms MIKAKOS — On the point of order, President, I am quite disappointed by those remarks because this adjournment matter is a serious one about a program in a local school in the electorate represented by both me and Mr Ondarchie. I would have thought he would have allowed me to continue to advocate on behalf of affected parents in relation to this issue. The fact that it might be critical of the government is entirely irrelevant. I am raising an issue in which I am calling on the Minister for Education to take action, and I am just about to conclude my contribution.

The PRESIDENT — Order! I intend to allow the member to conclude her contribution. I do not believe Ms Mikakos’s contribution tonight did attack the current government. What she was doing was explaining what the previous government’s provisions were in respect of this particular program, and she certainly is entitled to ask the current government to continue the program or to consider what was in place before. The context in which she has provided this material tonight is perfectly in order, and I do not believe she was attacking anybody at all.

Ms MIKAKOS — The point I was wishing to make is that this is a very valuable program to families in the Fawkner area. I have been very impressed by this program and I would like to see the program extended to other schools as well. But the point I was making is that the minister had previously claimed that front-line services would not be affected by budget cuts, and unfortunately they have been in relation to this particular school program.

I therefore call on the Minister for Education to take the necessary steps to finally support the IDEA program and Moomba Park Primary School to enable this program to continue.

Ms Lovell made the misleading claims in statements released while opening the Gowanbrae and Laurimar centres on 2 November.

Ms Mikakos, who visited the proposed site for the Lyndarum Children’s Centre with Member for Yan Yean Danielle Green, said Ms Lovell was in fact responsible for cutting the dedicated funding programs for new children’s centres.

“In just 12 months the Baillieu Government has done nothing to provide more children’s services despite the area’s growing population,” Ms Mikakos said.

“Ms Lovell is claiming credit for these two centres to cover the fact she has achieved very little in the children’s portfolio after nearly a year in office.

“Ms Lovell is responsible for the $1.9 million cuts to the popular Take-a-Break occasional childcare program and her government also axed three funding programs that help deliver new children’s centres into growth areas.

“Without these programs, children’s centres like Lyndarum won’t get state funding.

“Through these programs, Labor built six children’s centres in the Yan Yean electorate in six years. Labor also funded five local schools in five years. This is in stark contrast to the Baillieu Government, which has no plan to open any children’s centres or schools in Yan Yean – the fastest growing electorate in the state.

Member for Yan Yean Danielle Green said the attempt by Ms Lovell to take credit for the popular community project was misleading.

“It beggars belief that Ms Lovell would claim the Baillieu Government committed the $1.95 million for the Laurimar centre and $500,000 for the Gowanbrae centre,” Ms Green said.

“The centre has been open and operational since earlier this year, but Ms Lovell is trying to trick the public into believing she is solely responsible for it.”

Ms Lovell’s release from November 2 stated:

The Victorian Coalition Government contributed $1.95 million towards the centre, providing $1.2 million through the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the remainder through the Department of Planning and Community Development.

“Given Ms Lovell has cut dedicated funding for new children’s centres across Victoria; I am concerned this might be the last local children’s centre to receive state funding.”

Photos from the event can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielandrewsmp/6324264340/in/photostream

I want to begin by acknowledging the work of the former Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development, Maxine Morand, and the former Brumby government. Minister Morand was a great minister. She was a visionary; she was someone who was very committed to early childhood services in this state, and whilst I was very disappointed that she was defeated at the election, I think she can be very proud of her legacy and the many achievements that were initiated on her watch.

Between 1999 and 2010, the previous Labor government committed to a range of reforms in the early childhood sector. These included $131 million to the following infrastructure initiatives: $55 million for at least 108 children’s centres; $25 million for at least 405 renovation and refurbishment grants; $12 million for kindergarten IT; and $39 million for other minor capital upgrades. They also included funding to kindergarten services across Victoria, for which we saw increases in funding from $66.1 million when we came to office to $189.1 million in 2010-11 — an increase of 188 per cent. The reforms also included funding for early childhood intervention services, which increased from $25.4 million when we came to government to $61.2 million in last year’s budget, an increase of 141 per cent. We saw significant increases in funding to maternal and child health services, which increased by 163 per cent, and funding increases of 178 per cent to the program for students with disabilities.

In last year’s budget alone we delivered $63.1 million over five years to meet demand for kindergarten places, providing an additional 3590 kindergarten places, which resulted in a total of 66 090 funded kindergarten places during the last financial year. That was an increase of an additional 4000 places on top of the previous year’s funding. We also saw an extension of the children’s capital program, which supports access to quality integrated children’s services with grants to build children’s centres, renovation and refurbishment grants, and other minor capital grants.

It has been interesting this year. On occasion I have had the pleasure of attending some of these events where Minister Lovell has been present to officially open new facilities. I have been pleased to attend those and to have regard to the fact that those programs and facilities are part of Maxine Morand’s legacy to Victoria’s children. The previous government also provided funding to Victoria’s early childhood workforce, which is a very — –

Mrs Coote — On a point of order, President, we have now been going for some time. I appreciate that the shadow minister is stating her case, but this is about the bill at hand and is not a long, sad litany of 11 years of failure by the Labor government. I ask you to bring her back to the content of the bill at hand.

Ms MIKAKOS – On the point of order, President, I am in fact discussing a whole range of issues that do relate to the bill. In particular I am about to come to the issue of the early childhood workforce, because without additional funding to implement training for Victoria’s early childhood workforce, this bill would not actually be able to work.

The PRESIDENT — Order! I take the point of order raised by Mrs Coote.

I am mindful that whilst Mrs Coote suggests that the member has been going for a period of time, it has in fact been less than 5 minutes of what is potentially a 60-minute speech. I am not sure that Ms Mikakos intends to go that long, but certainly she has not yet overstepped the mark in terms of providing some context for the remarks she is to make on this bill. I note that the bill — and I was assisted on this to some extent by an interjection from the Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development — is more about the national framework for children’s services than it is about state budget allocations, and certainly former state budget allocations. However, I am accepting the comments of Ms Mikakos as being context for the remarks she is no doubt about to proceed with in respect of the legislation that is before the house.

Ms MIKAKOS – It may well become a 60-minute contribution; that will depend on the number of interjections.

We are very proud of our legacy in this area. I know the government feels uncomfortable when I talk about all these achievements because there is very little on the government’s side of the ledger to compare with Maxine Morand’s achievements. There is an important context to this bill, and the point I am making is that if you read the second-reading speech, you would not know that there was a whole range of reforms that the Brumby Labor government began under its watch to see these sweeping landmark reforms implemented nationally and in Victoria.

Part of that has seen support from both the federal and Victorian governments for the professional development of our early childhood workforce. A contribution of $9.7 million over four years was announced this year by Minister Garrett to provide support to the building of capacity and qualifications for early childhood workers, funding which has benefited the Victorian early childhood workforce as well.

The Labor government in Victoria also provided assistance for the development of our workforce. That is quite critical to the implementation of this legislation and the national quality framework, because a key part of the national quality framework is about improved qualifications for the workforce in the sector, and without that funding this would not be possible.

The former government committed $3.5 million to improving Victoria’s early childhood workforce that saw a professional mentoring program for up to 540 early childhood teachers, the expansion of two leadership programs offered through the Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership and up to 3000 professional learning sessions for early childhood professionals to support the implementation of the early years learning and development framework. That is what it means to invest in early childhood education.

We have to ensure that all Australian children, including Victorian children, have the best start in life, and the national reform agenda that was signed by the Council of Australian Governments in 2009 sought to implement a number of national partnerships between the federal government and state and territory jurisdictions.

Two of the national partnerships included the national partnership agreement on early childhood education, which has a target of access to 15 hours of early childhood education per week for all children in the year before school by 2013, and the national partnership agreement on a national quality agenda for early childhood education and care, which was agreed to by COAG in December 2009 and which provides commonwealth funding to support the establishment of a jointly governed and unified national quality framework. The bill specifically relates to this second agreement.

I again put on record that — as I said, there is no historic context in the second-reading speech — the Brumby Labor government took a lead role in the development of the national quality agenda by agreeing to be the host state for the national legislation.

We were committed to improving the safety and quality of Victoria’s children’s services, and the national partnership agreement agreed to by COAG paved the way for the establishment of the national quality framework for early childhood education and school-aged care.

The commitment by all Australian governments to a new national quality framework for early childhood education and school-aged care was a landmark decision in this country. The framework aims to replace the existing licensing and quality framework in each state and establish a jointly governed and unified system.

Under this framework all Australian government jurisdictions have agreed to do the following: streamline regulatory requirements; improve staff-to-child ratios; provide a more qualified early childhood workforce; develop a national quality standard and transparent rating systems to give families information about the quality of their child’s early childhood education and care service; and establish a national body to guide the implementation and management of the framework, the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority.

The former Brumby Labor government led the way in the establishment of the national law for Victoria, with the Education and Care Services National Law Act being passed by the Victorian Parliament in September last year to enact the national quality framework for our jurisdiction. That bill, now an act, ensures that early childhood education care and outside school hours care providers were working under a clear set of quality guidelines.

Since 1 July 2010 the national law has been slowly implemented progressively across Australia and across our children’s services here in Victoria. The bill before the house essentially constitutes consequential updates in preparation for the national law commencing in full force on 1 January next year.

The national quality framework will cover around 80 per cent of children’s services and will apply to long day care, family day care, kindergarten, preschool and outside school hours care services. It will provide powers to improve child-to-staff ratios and minimum qualification requirements for child-care staff. I know that many children’s services have already implemented a whole range of reforms in anticipation of this. Given that it is national Children’s Week, I pay tribute to all the people who work in the early childhood sector. I think they do a terrific job and are very passionate and committed to providing the best start to young people’s lives.

The framework will help to ensure that children have access to quality learning programs to develop the knowledge and skills they need for life and learning, something that has been and remains the no.1 priority of the Australian Labor Party. There is very strong evidence-based research that I have referred to in previous debates — which I will not go through today — recognising the importance the early years of life have for a child’s future. I think we would all agree that a solid start in life through the best education we can offer is vital.

Unfortunately the Baillieu government has a poor record when it comes to early childhood investment. We have seen the axing of funding for the Take a Break occasional child-care program, which, but for a relatively small amount of money, could support over 9000 Victorian families across our state. The minister has continually called on the federal government to take up its responsibility and has failed to appreciate that other state jurisdictions around the country have fully funded their equivalent programs.

We had the farce of the federal Liberal Party commencing a so-called national petition on a subject that was an issue only in Victoria, because we are the only state where the state government has pulled out funding and put occasional child-care services in jeopardy. We were very proud last year to commit to full funding of the Take a Break program, and I am extremely worried that many centres now face either closure of their occasional child-care program or fee increases.

Last week, along with the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Tarlamis, who is a very hardworking local member, I attended the Chelsea occasional child-care centre to talk to families and staff at that centre about the consequences of the state government pulling its funding. They informed me that their hourly rate had had to increase from $15 to $22 an hour.

Hon. W. A. Lovell interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – The minister says that is rubbish. It is a fact that the staff of the centre informed me of. I think the minister would be well placed to go out there and talk to them herself if she thinks it is rubbish. They will tell her that they have increased their fees because her government has pulled their occasional child-care funding.

I welcome the announcement earlier this week by Kate Ellis, the federal Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare, about additional support for occasional care places and in-home care places around the country. It is estimated that Victoria will receive around 250 occasional care places and 140 in-home care places. This is on top of the huge amount of money that the federal Labor government provides for the child-care benefit and the child-care rebate. In Victoria alone it provides $399 million through the child-care benefit and $291 million through the child-care rebate to pay 50 per cent of out-of-pocket costs for families.

If you contrast those types of figures with the $1.9 billion that we are talking about for Take a Break, it is just galling to think that the Baillieu government cannot find close to $2 million to keep such an important program going in our state.

We know that this cut is just one of many that Victorian families are facing as a result of $480 million worth of cuts to the education department’s budget. In the early childhood sector this has meant the axing of the Young Readers program, which distributed free books to parents of young children. We have seen kindergartens lose their free VICNET internet service, and now the government is giving them a measly one-off grant so that they can find their own internet service providers and host services, which they previously received for free.

We have seen no dedicated funding in the budget to establish new children’s centres.

I have spoken to many local councils which, until now, have had plans to build new children’s hubs. When they go to apply for funding they are going to find out that there is very little money available to them, because they will be competing with all the other kindergartens that will be applying for funding for kindergarten infrastructure. Most disappointingly, we have seen a significant underfunding of kindergarten infrastructure, with the provision of only $15 million in capital funding for kindergartens this year, which is going to be inadequate to address Victoria’s baby boom let alone prepare kindergartens for 15 hours of four-year-old kinder from 2013.

We have heard the minister make comments a number of times hinting that she is looking to walk away from the national partnership agreement; most recently she talked about renegotiating it with the federal government. I point out that the member for Murray Valley in the Assembly, Mr Tim McCurdy, issued a media release on 9 June this year stating:

This government is supporting kindergartens in the move to implement the new national standards …

It seems that Mr McCurdy is fully committed, even if his ministry is not. The same press release also states that the Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development said:

… the funding for kindergartens, through the coalition government and the national partnership on early childhood education, will help deliver reforms to ensure children receive an even better education before they start school.

That is a great sentiment, but I wonder how the minister plans to do this with only $15 million in this year’s budget for kindergarten capital infrastructure. We have seen a severe underfunding of kindergarten infrastructure, and the minister is now seeking that the federal government make up her shortfall.

Mrs Coote — On a point of order, President, we have now been listening for over 20 minutes to the same broken record, which is almost a reiteration of the budget speech by the shadow minister. I would not like to suggest what you should do, but would you like to explain to her that this is not a shadow ministerial statement? This is actually talking about a bill, and she needs to be drawn back to the substance of what we are debating here today.

Ms MIKAKOS – On the point of order, President, again I draw your attention to the fact that I am giving context.

This is about national partnership reforms, and I am referring to agreements that the Victorian government is a signatory to. Whilst Minister Lovell may not have signed on the dotted line, her government is bound by those national agreements. I am giving some context, because it is the context to the bill we have before us.

The PRESIDENT — Order! I offer an apology to the house in the sense that I was not as attentive to Ms Mikakos’s contribution to the debate as I might have been. I accept that we are now a substantial way into the speech in respect of the lead speech from the opposition on this bill, and I would have thought that that context was probably established at this point and that it might well be appropriate to actually look to the provisions of the bill.

In Ms Mikakos’s contribution I have heard discussion on some of the national relationships of this legislation, where it came from and some of the implications. Certainly budget matters have been canvassed. I think it might well be appropriate at this point, with that context established, to refer more to some of the bill. I do not wish to direct Ms Mikakos specifically, but she might be mindful of the time that is remaining and the position that she might put in regard to the opposition’s views on various clauses of the bill.

Ms MIKAKOS – I know it is painful for the government to hear what I have to say. These national partnerships are part of what we are debating today, because the bill is about implementing the national partnerships that have been signed by Victoria, the federal government and other state and territory jurisdictions.

I draw members’ attention to a document developed by the federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations entitled National Partnerships for Early Childhood Education — Summary of Activities under State and Territory Bilateral Agreements to be Achieved by 2013. Under the section that relates to Victoria, the document says:

The Victorian government is committed to …

…

investing in new and/or improved infrastructure to meet the additional demand for services.

It was always understood that the Victorian government would have to contribute to infrastructure in anticipation of the 2013 commencement of 15 hours per week of kindergarten for four-year-olds, something that will be entirely impossible given that the budget only allocates $15 million for this. This is in stark contrast to the previous Labor government, which had committed $100 million for this before last year’s election.

It is disappointing that the minister continues to ignore the needs of Victorian families, with the consequence that more and more kindergartens are saying they will have to cut back — –

Hon. W. A. Lovell — On a point of order, President, it has been only a couple of minutes since you gave your ruling, and I believe the member is absolutely flouting it.

She has not discussed the bill at all; she is now discussing a separate national partnership agreement — the national partnership for early childhood education around access to 15 hours of kindergarten — which has nothing to do with the bill before the house.

Ms MIKAKOS – On the point of order, President, I draw your attention to the fact that the bill is about the implementation of national partnership agreements. Under those national partnership agreements, Minister, your government is bound to implement certain — –

The PRESIDENT — Order! Ms Mikakos is talking to me on the point of order, not to the minister.

Ms MIKAKOS – The points I have been raising are absolutely relevant to the debate about the bill, because they are about a national partnership agreement that this government has committed to but has failed to deliver on.

The PRESIDENT — Order! Again, as long as the member remains to some extent relevant to the legislation, I am not in a position to direct her as to how she should speak. I understand that the point of order raised by Ms Lovell is that there is an issue of relevance, because the member is discussing agreements that are not specifically part of the bill. I suggest to Ms Mikakos that she make her remarks on the partnership agreements fairly brief, because I accept Ms Lovell’s point that they are not apposite to this particular bill.

The danger we run is that as lead speaker for the opposition Ms Mikakos is opening up the debate very broadly for the following speakers. Speakers in the second-reading debate, in particular the lead speakers from each party, need to be mindful that they set the parameters for the whole debate. In canvassing matters that are outside the specific legislation before the house Ms Mikakos might open up the debate considerably. That is not necessarily in the best interests of the house and perhaps raises issues that are just not relevant to the specific legislation before us.

I must say there are aspects of Ms Mikakos’s contribution today that smack of a shadow minister’s statement as distinct from an appraisal of the particular bill before us. I recognise that the previous government believed it had made significant achievements in this area, and they have been canvassed quite substantially by Ms Mikakos. I ask her to focus more on the legislation from this point in time, notwithstanding the fact that the matters she has raised have some bearing on the bill, as I said. I think Ms Lovell’s point that Ms Mikakos is moving into some other commonwealth-state partnerships unrelated to this bill is a relevant one.

Ms MIKAKOS – The minister was a little pre-emptive, because I was just about to come to the specifics of the bill — –

Mrs Coote — You admit it — the specifics.

Ms MIKAKOS – The specifics. The bill seeks to make a number of amendments to the Children’s Services Act 1996 to make changes consequential on the enactment of the Education and Care Services National Law (Victoria) and also to make minor amendments to the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010, which was passed by the Parliament just before last year’s election, as I explained much earlier to those who were listening.

As I said, the bill is essentially a tidy up in preparation for the national law commencing in full force. I pay tribute to children’s services around our state for doing a lot of hard work to get services ready for these changes. They have already made many reforms. The bill’s commencement will coincide with the commencement of the national law reforms on 1 January 2012. It will clarify what will stay covered by the Children’s Services Act 1996 and what will move to the national law.

There are over 4000 licensed children’s services in Victoria, around 80 per cent of which will be captured by the new national law; the remaining services will continue to be regulated under the Children’s Services Act 1996.

The new national quality framework will apply to long day care, family day care, kindergartens, preschools and outside school care services. As such, this bill removes all references to them in the Children’s Services Act 1996 so as to avoid duplication. The Children’s Services Act 1996 will continue to regulate the children’s services that are not part of the national law — that is, occasional child care, mobile services, budget-based services, such as Aboriginal services, and sport and leisure services. The provisions of this bill also include the introduction of a new regime for an associated children’s service, which the bill defines as:

… a children’s service that is operated or intended to be operated –

(a) at the same place as an approved education and care service; and

(b) by the person who is the approved provider for that education and care service.

This will apply where more than one service type is located at the same place — for example, where a kindergarten and an occasional child-care centre are co-located. At a practical level this will allow for one service approval, governed solely under the national law, to cater for both service types located at the same place. It will eliminate the need for each service type to have its own separate service approval, and in this way will help to reduce duplication and the regulatory burden on services.

The bill contains many clauses that seek to remove references to family day care in the Victorian law, as these will now be covered by the national law.

The bill streamlines the regulatory requirements between Victoria’s children’s services legislation and the national law, allowing professionals who are deemed fit and proper under the national law to be automatically recognised as such under the Victorian law. Finally, the bill makes a number of technical and consequential amendments to the Children’s Services Act 1996 and other relevant legislation to ensure accuracy and consistency of the reforms to the children’s services sector.

Overall the framework strikes the right balance between improving opportunities and outcomes for children and the cost to families. I realise there will be some increases in costs; I hope they will be minimal in nature. However, as a result of these groundbreaking reforms, Victoria’s children will be better off. I believe we will see a real benefit to Victorian families and in the care of Victoria’s children.

As I said earlier, the former Labor government was instrumental in giving Victoria the opportunity to provide national leadership in the development of the national quality framework. I note that the Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development, Ms Lovell, is currently the chair of the ministerial council overseeing the implementation of this framework and has continued the work that was commenced by the previous minister, Minister Morand.

I hope Minister Lovell uses the position she holds to play a leadership role, in the same way as the previous government did on a whole range of issues around early childhood reform, and that she is able to convince her state colleagues of the importance of investing in early childhood education and care, which unfortunately she has not been successful in doing so far.

In conclusion, this move to a national system of regulation will mean better information for parents, a lesser intake for services and consistently higher standards of care. However, I firmly believe it is the responsibility of the state government to provide quality children’s services to Victorian families. Frankly, this government is just not doing enough to date.

The Labor Opposition has been forced to take legal action to secure a report into the occasional childcare program Take-a-Break after the Baillieu Government blocked its release.

Documents were today lodged with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) seeking to have the KPMG report into the effectiveness of the program released.

Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Children and Young Adults Jenny Mikakos said the Baillieu Government had previously blocked Labor’s Freedom of Information request for the report.

“The Baillieu Government has refused to provide the $1.9 million needed to continue the Take-a-Break program, and now the Minister for Children Wendy Lovell is desperate to stop this report from being released,” Ms Mikakos said.

“Many families who have been left without childcare because of Mr Baillieu’s funding cuts must be wondering what Ms Lovell has to hide.

“We have filed the documents in the hope the Baillieu Government will be required to publicly release the report.

“The ball is firmly in the Government’s court. Ms Lovell can either spend taxpayers’ money to continue to block the release of the report, or she can release it immediately.”

Ms Mikakos said it was disappointing the Baillieu Government’s secrecy had forced the Opposition to take this action.

“The Baillieu Government took office last year on a promise of being open and transparent,” she said.

“However with thousands of parliamentary questions ignored and dozens of freedom of information requests denied, it’s now clear Mr Baillieu’s promises are nothing but empty rhetoric.”

That this house –

(1) expresses concern at the failure of the Baillieu government to support successful programs assisting Victoria’s young people;

(2) notes that the Baillieu government has cut funding to a number of programs that assist young people including –

(a) the apprenticeship completion bonus, which subsidised employers taking on more apprentices and helping to see them through their training;

(b) FReeZACentral;

(c) the mentoring and capacity building initiative, which relates to youth mentoring; and

(d) the Victorian certificate of applied learning (VCAL); and

(3) calls on the Baillieu government to provide more assistance to support young Victorians.

It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of this motion, a motion that seeks to express concern at the Baillieu government’s failure to support successful programs that assist Victoria’s young people. This motion calls on the Baillieu government to provide more assistance to support young people.

Since coming to office the Baillieu government has cut a number of programs that benefit young people, and I will seek to go through each of them in turn.

I will begin with the FReeZACentral program. FReeZA was introduced by the previous Labor government to provide drug, alcohol and smoke-free events for young people across Victoria. By networking with FReeZA committees around the state, the Push, a not-for-profit organisation, helps support young people in getting the skills they need to organise their own live events through FReeZACentral. FReeZACentral workshops and mentoring programs are free and offered to young Victorians to help them establish a career in the music industry. They encourage young people to participate in music training workshops, providing them with the skills and experience to become, amongst other things, a performer, a festival or event organiser, a music business person or an entrepreneur or to work in technical production, music media or marketing.

It is these workshops and mentoring programs that the Baillieu government has decided are not needed by young Victorians anymore.

The government recently released a report commissioned by the previous Labor government revealing that live music contributed $501 million to the Victorian economy and provided jobs for 17 200 people. In the last financial year over 500 young people attended eight accredited training workshops across Victoria, and 54 young people were selected to participate in the FReeZACentral mentoring program with professionals from across the music and entertainment industry.

Labor recognises the benefits of the hands-on experience in the music industry that FReeZACentral provides to young people. Unfortunately the Baillieu government has turned its back on skills development for young people by choosing to cut funding to this important program.

With many local FReeZA committees and a number of young mentees across my electorate, it is disappointing that the Minister for Youth Affairs does not credit the contribution of these young people to the music industry. When the minister was asked about this funding cut in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings earlier this year, he responded by saying that this program was not one that made the cut. I question the basis for the decision about what makes the cut and what does not, when the program has proven to be so successful.

The minister was quoted recently talking about Youthcentral’s roving reporter program. He said in the Geelong Independent on 14 October:

This is an opportunity for these young people to experience what it’s like to work as a professional journalist …

I ask: what is it about young people who want to experience what it is like to work as a professional within the music industry that does not warrant the same level of support? I am certainly very supportive of the roving reporter program, but I think the FReeZACentral program is also beneficial to young Victorians.

The member for Benalla in the Assembly, Bill Sykes, recently put out a media release congratulating a local Benalla band for making it all the way to the regional finals of the FReeZA Battle of the Bands competition. The Victorian Battle of the Bands competition is another FReeZA event managed by the Push. The Push also manages the FReeZA support service, which helps young people on FReeZA committees and adult workers helping to deliver the FReeZA program to obtain free advice on a range of FReeZA-related events.

What I would point out to Dr Sykes and other MPs who are happy to congratulate their local young people who have made it to the Battle of the Bands — and they are certainly worthy of congratulation — is that with this program having been cut, they may not see many more of their young constituents making it to the Battle of the Bands competition in the future.

This government’s cut to one of the FReeZA events managed by the Push is just the beginning of the end for many youth programs in Victoria. In his media release of 7 October the minister said:

The Victorian coalition government supports the FReeZA program and is committed to providing opportunities for young people aged 12 to 25 to develop skills and experience in the music industry.

I have to question that commitment, given the cut to the FReeZACentral program. It remains a mystery how the minister thinks he can do this.

I call on the Baillieu government to restore funding to the FReeZACentral training and mentoring program and commit ongoing funding to FReeZA. General funding for FReeZA, quite aside from FReeZACentral, is also up in the air, and we do not know whether the funding will continue beyond this financial year. Again I call on the minister to make an ongoing commitment to the FReeZA program into the future. It is very disappointing that the Minister for Youth Affairs cannot persuade his colleagues that the FReeZACentral program and other programs for young people are of enormous benefit.

There are, of course, other programs that have been affected by the government’s budget this year. The Victorian certificate of applied learning — otherwise known as VCAL — is one of the programs experiencing a funding cut, and we have heard much about that. Slashing $48 million from VCAL makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This decision will impact on students statewide and could even force some schools to cut back on their education programs.

We have heard in the media in recent days that some schools are now looking at cutting back on the VCE (Victorian certificate of education) subjects they are going to offer to their students in order to find the funding to keep their VCAL programs going. This is an extraordinary situation. The government is putting school communities in the difficult position of having to rob Peter to pay Paul to keep a very popular alternative to the VCE program available to their students.

VCAL programs are essential in helping students achieve valuable hands-on trades training and to pick up skills and experience that will be important to them in the workforce. There are many reasons for not every student being able to complete the VCE, and it is quite critical that every student have the opportunity to pursue more career-focused studies. I believe VCAL is a great alternative to VCE for year 11 and 12 students as well as mature age students and is worthy of ongoing support.

VCAL has delivered very real benefits for young people. I understand that last year 86.9 per cent of VCAL students were able to take a direct pathway to further education, training or work. It is astonishing that the Baillieu government has cut funds to such an important program.

Victorian schools and education providers recently had to resort to placing an open-letter newspaper advertisement directed at the Baillieu government, calling on it to reinstate the funding. Sadly, that plea has fallen on deaf ears so far. The Baillieu government is clearly out of touch with the educational needs of the state’s students. VCAL is an important program, and it is time the government recognises this fact.

VCAL was started by the former Labor government in 2002 and is now undertaken by about 20 000 students at more than 400 schools, TAFEs and adult learning centres. In the Northern Metropolitan Region 40 schools offer the VCAL program.

Mr Ondarchie would be well advised to listen to what I am saying, because this is also his electorate. These schools include my old school, Thornbury High School, William Ruthven Secondary College, Preston Girls Secondary College, Croxton Special School, Epping Secondary College, Lalor North Secondary College, Mill Park Secondary College and the Concord School in Bundoora. These are all important schools.

Mr Ondarchie — You should go and visit them all.

Ms MIKAKOS – I frequently visit schools in my electorate, Mr Ondarchie.

Mr Ondarchie — I have been to visit them all, Ms Mikakos. They would love to see you one day.

Ms MIKAKOS – I am sure they all have a lot to say to you about the cuts to the VCAL program, Mr Ondarchie. All these schools in the Northern Metropolitan Region have been affected by this loss of funding. If Mr Ondarchie were representing his constituents well, he would be championing the restoration of funding to his local schools so that they could have the opportunity to offer VCAL.

Mr Ondarchie interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – Mr Ondarchie, you have been here for 5 seconds, and you think you know everything; you would be well advised to listen and learn.

An honourable member interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – My colleagues are already convinced about the merits of the VCAL program; I am seeking to convince Mr Ondarchie and his colleagues, so I am pleased they are all here to listen to my contribution.

It has been a huge disappointment to local schools, students and parents across Victoria that funding to this important program has been cut. As I indicated before, this will threaten not only the availability of VCAL but also the availability of other subjects through the VCE program, which has been thrown into question by school principals who have indicated they will have to find savings somewhere, and these savings may well come from cutting back on VCE subjects.

Nine schools intend to provide VCAL from next year, proving that the program is in demand and worthy of support.

It was interesting to listen to Mr Leane’s question to the Minister for Higher Education and Skills in question time earlier today. He asked the minister whether schools would be funded to offer the VCAL program for the first time. Mr Hall made it clear that the amount of funding that would be available was — –

Mr Leane interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – He was vague, Mr Leane. He did not make it clear how much money would be available to schools offering VCAL for the first time. We may well be faced with a situation where few additional schools are able to offer this program into the future unless the funding is urgently reinstated. It is clear that the government has no plan or vision to provide the skills and training necessary to create jobs or stimulate Victoria’s economy.

I now turn to the issue of the apprenticeship completion bonus.

Not only has the Baillieu government cut the VCAL program but it will also phase out the apprenticeship completion bonus. This bonus is an incentive, paid directly to employers, to take on more apprentices and trainees and to see them complete their training. It has been a great success in having more young people take on apprenticeships and stay focused during their critical first year.

Labor understands that jobs connect the economy to the community, create prosperity and support families. Whilst funding is allocated to the program in this year’s budget, it will slowly diminish in the out years, and it was stated in the budget papers that this bonus will be phased out. From 1 July no new apprentices will be eligible for this program, putting at risk job opportunities for 14 000 apprentices and trainees who qualify for the bonus each year — a staggering figure. Cutting this initiative is another example of the poor judgement of the government, which is struggling to work out its plan for Victorian jobs.

Hon. M. P. Pakula interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – We have seen cut after cut everywhere, Mr Pakula; you are absolutely right. The government is looking at cutting back on a range of vital programs for Victorians and in this case young Victorians in particular.

The final issue I will touch on is the cuts to the youth mentoring program. The mentoring and capacity building initiative was started in 2005 by the previous Labor government to help address disadvantage and make Victoria a fairer state. The government committed $3.9 million for the four-year period from 2008-09 to 2011-12 to ensure that this program was supported.

The program targets young people who are at risk of dropping out of their studies and who have become disengaged from employment and training.

Sadly, the 12 projects across Victoria which are supported by this initiative face the end of their funding at the end of this calendar year. At the end of December these projects will no longer be funded under this initiative. Each project has a different focus of support for young people from vulnerable and socially disadvantaged backgrounds across rural, regional and metropolitan areas. In fact half of those programs are available to young Victorians in regional Victoria. This program encourages teenagers and young adults to re-engage with study or employment by being paired with adults who are prepared to volunteer their time to support them.

Last week I had the opportunity of and the pleasure to visit a number of these innovative projects. I was amazed by the stories and their proven success rates. After visiting the programs and having these discussions, I am more convinced than ever of their success in helping vulnerable young people and of the importance of keeping the programs going.

For example, I visited the Barwon Youth Big Brothers Big Sisters project in Geelong.

Ms Tierney — A great project.

Ms MIKAKOS – It is absolutely a great project, Ms Tierney. It has recorded an increase of around 50 per cent in school attendance by its youth. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet one of the big brothers, who came along to describe his experience of being a mentor to a young person. He goes fishing with, spends time in a social and recreational way and provides informal support to a young person who needed that support. It was clear from what he had to say that the program had really made a big impact on that young man’s life. Other people who worked with the young man had remarked on the significance of the program and how the support he received from his big brother seemed to have a positive influence on his life.

The Beyond All Expectations program in Emerald has recorded a 98 per cent success rate in helping young people re-engage with work or training opportunities. The program that I visited at the Emerald Centre for Hope and Outreach is quite impressive. I had the opportunity to talk to both staff and volunteers and the young people involved in the program. It is a unique program in that the mentors not only help support young people by building their confidence and self-esteem but also take young people to different places of employment in the local region.

They take young people to the local TAFE and encourage them to consider both employment and educational opportunities that might be open to them in the future.

The program has had a great success rate in getting young people engaged in study or employment by pairing them with a mentor who provides that support. This is a not-for-profit organisation which is supported by St Mark’s, the local Anglican church in the community. Without government funding the program will really struggle to survive, and that would be a huge loss to the local community. They have worked for many years to build up the program and to get on their books a number of mentors who are prepared to volunteer their time. Without the support of the state government they may well struggle into the future.

Another program I visited is the Jindi Woraback youth mentoring program based in Lilydale, which is supported by the Shire of Yarra Ranges. I had an opportunity to speak to the staff involved in running that program and was impressed by their commitment to supporting young people in their shire.

All of these programs are fantastic because, as I said, they are based on volunteers providing their time. Funding is required, however, to staff coordinators who undertake the police checks, the working-with-children checks and the training and ongoing support provided to the mentors. They ensure that everything is running on track. Each year each program receives only $50 000, which is a tiny amount of money in the scheme of things, but it is enough to keep the programs going. Without that state government support all the programs may well be at risk in the future.

Many have said to me that they would seek support from philanthropists, but at this time when we face a global financial crisis philanthropists and the corporate sector are forever being asked to dig deeper into their pockets and their money can go only so far. It is important that the government is prepared to support the programs and indicate to the community that they are valued.

There is another program that I wish to highlight to the house because of its unique nature — that is, the Bridge Youth Service young parents mentoring program in regional Victoria, which is all about providing support and assistance to vulnerable young people when they are expecting to have a child or once the baby has been born. This unique program seeks to support teenage mothers who without that support may well have their child placed in the child protection system.

All the programs are very worthy of support.

I point out to the government that ultimately it is a dollars-and-cents argument, because it seems to focus on such issues. As I have indicated, the mentoring projects are low cost, but they have a high impact on the lives of young Victorians.

Recently I met with the Victorian Youth Mentoring Alliance, which is a fantastic organisation. It is the peak body for all the youth mentoring programs across Victoria. The programs across the state total 233, so many are not supported by the youth mentoring initiative but are supported by other sources of funding. The information the alliance provided to me is that there has been a range of studies that have proven exactly how cost effective the programs are to government and to the community. For example, a study by Access Economics looked at the impact of early intervention, such as youth mentoring, in nine outer metropolitan Melbourne local government areas.

It found that the financial benefits from implementing a youth mentoring program outweigh the costs of the program itself.

In a similar vein, researchers at Deakin and Melbourne universities have found that a mentoring program that targeted the most troubled 1 per cent of young Victorians aged between 10 to 14 would cost about $40 million, but it could deliver up to eight times that in cost savings to the community. The program that I indicated, the initiative that has been running, cost only $3.9 million; it was not $40 million. But the point I seek to make is that if you spend money on mentoring programs, there is a huge dividend to the community in terms of cost savings down the track.

I touched on some of these issues last night when we were discussing a bill that relates to the youth justice portfolio. The point I made then is that there is a far less likelihood of young people reoffending or engaging in antisocial behaviour if you provide them with support to divert them out of the criminal justice system. You target at-risk disengaged young people with the strategies that are available, such as youth mentoring, the Victorian certificate of applied learning and others. I believe investing in these programs would be money well spent and would represent very good value for money for the community. Apart from the youth mentoring initiative itself, the government is also making cuts to three of six regional coordination projects that support new and existing mentoring programs. I say three out of six because the other three are in fact funded by philanthropy.

The other funding that is in jeopardy is the funding received by the Victorian Youth Mentoring Alliance. As I mentioned, the Victorian Youth Mentoring Alliance is the peak body that provides support and training to all youth mentoring programs across Victoria.

It is an important body, but its funding runs out at the end of this financial year. This body was established in 2005, and since that time the number of youth mentoring programs in Victoria has tripled, so I take this opportunity to congratulate it on the work it has done in supporting youth mentoring organisations across our state. That is why the previous Labor government worked in partnership with the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust to fund the Victorian Youth Mentoring Alliance, an organisation that is now at risk without ongoing financial support.

Last night I referred to a report by the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, tabled in July 2009. I will refer to it again because it is an important report. It is entitled Inquiry into Strategies to Prevent High Volume Offending and Recidivism by Young People, and it looks at a range of issues around young people in the juvenile justice system and the reasons young people offend.

The committee in its report — and it was a bipartisan report — recommended that the Department of Human Services promote and fund mentoring programs through the Victorian Youth Mentoring Alliance to support stronger links between leaders and role models in the community and young people in custody. As I said, it was a bipartisan report. That recommendation was supported by members of the coalition. I hope the members who supported this particular recommendation will now seek to lobby the Minister for Youth Affairs, Ryan Smith, to reinstate mentoring initiative funding.

I know the government has been going around saying to people that they can apply for funding under the Engage! program. The point that I wish to make is that the Engage! program was called the youth participation and access program under the previous government. This government seems to be very fond of rebadging things to disguise funding cuts. The Engage!

program is available to council youth services, so what will happen now is that all the councils around the state will apply for funding for their core youth services under the Engage! program, and all their youth mentoring programs will be forced to compete with them. The only way that the youth mentoring programs will be able to continue is if funding is cut to council core youth services across the state.

I suspect what will happen is that a number of youth mentoring programs will miss out on funding, but councils will also receive less funding for their core youth services. As a result, it will be a lose-lose situation all round for youth programs across our state. It is disappointing that the government is forcing its mentoring programs to compete with each other for this funding. They also have to compete with the councils themselves in some respects because some of the youth mentoring programs are actually run by councils across Victoria.

Councils will now have to make a decision about whether they put in an application for their youth mentoring program or only put in an application for their core youth services. I suspect some will decide that it is too difficult and they will only put in an application for core youth services. Our young Victorians will be the losers from that. The coalition’s failure to continue funding this program is the clearest evidence yet that it simply does not understand the enormous benefits that youth mentoring brings to the individual and to society as a whole.

In conclusion, the government has made cuts to a range of programs that support our young Victorians. It is an absolute disgrace that a government in its first budget has chosen to cut four important programs that support young Victorians in many different ways. Engaging our young people in education, training and employment and supporting them to build confidence and self-esteem should be one of the top priorities of any state government.

I have great pride in being a member of a party that made education of young people its top priority. It is about time the Baillieu government focused on what is important to Victorians. I know all Victorians would support greater funding for youth programs, and I call on the Baillieu government to reinstate funding to all these programs.

The initiative helped dozens of at-risk young people from 12 statewide youth mentoring projects every year. These projects are spread across metropolitan Melbourne, regional communities and regional cities.

They seek to link up young adult mentors with young people, to provide them with support, to build their self-esteem and confidence and also to assist them to re-engage with study or employment.

I had the opportunity to visit a number of these programs recently. I was very impressed by people’s stories and the proven success rate of the programs. I particularly commend the programs at the Emerald Centre for Hope and Outreach, which I visited. I commend the Beyond All Expectations mentoring project, which is based in Emerald, the Jindi Woraback youth mentoring project run by Yarra Ranges Shire Council, which is based in Lilydale, and the Barwon Youth Big Brothers Big Sisters project. These are all excellent programs. I take this opportunity to congratulate the individuals involved.

All these programs have had huge success in having a positive impact on the lives of young Victorians.

I encourage members to read the article in the Herald Sun of 21 October written by Susie O’Brien. Susie said if the government spent a little bit of money, it could have a preventive effect when it comes to juvenile offending. It is an excellent article, and she made comments about her own experiences as a mentor.

I encourage coalition members to speak to Dr Denis Napthine, the Minister for Ports, who I understand has been a mentor in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. I call on the minister to restore dedicated funding to youth mentoring projects across Victoria and to provide more assistance to support our young people.

This bill proposes to make changes to the security and operations surrounding Melbourne’s Parkville youth justice precinct, and I wish to put on the record my thanks to the office of the Minister for Community Services, Ms Wooldridge, not only for the briefing that was provided on this bill but also for the opportunity that I had to visit the Parkville youth justice precinct earlier today. I thank Minister Wooldridge’s chief of staff, Mr Ben Harris, for facilitating that visit. Obviously I would have preferred if it had not occurred on the day that the bill was being debated, but nevertheless I am grateful for the fact that I had an opportunity to visit the precinct.

It is important to put on the record that when we were in government the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee also visited the Parkville precinct. I thought it was beneficial to members of the then opposition to visit those facilities.

I am sure that all parliamentarians would find it quite eye-opening to have an opportunity to not only visit the Parkville precinct but also the adult prison system. When we as parliamentarians are grappling with difficult decisions around sentencing it is important that we have an opportunity to see for ourselves those types of facilities that sentenced individuals end up in. That would put the whole sentencing debate into proper context.

The Brumby Labor government had a strong record of supporting young people both in and out of the youth justice system. Our primary focus in the area of youth justice was crime prevention to avoid low-risk young people entering the youth justice system in the first place, to rehabilitate more serious offenders and to support young offenders after release from custodial care to ensure that they did not develop an offending lifestyle.

That is why the Labor government invested $22 million in new initiatives in last year’s budget to strengthen the response to youth crime across Victoria by employing 55 on-the-ground youth workers and introducing a new behavioural change program for young people and a rapid response team to work with police dealing with young people in crime hot spots. I hope the Minister for Community Services will continue all those worthy initiatives and support them into the future.

It was also a Labor initiative that introduced the youth justice group conferencing program in 2006. This program makes young offenders accountable for their offending by bringing them together with their victims to apologise and repair the harm caused by their offence. The program has had enormous success in reducing recidivism among young offenders. I am pleased that the program was supported in this year’s budget. By attempting to strengthen a young person’s family and community, this program helps to identifyways of restoring the harm associated with the offending behaviour.

The previous government also committed funding to establish a new behavioural change program for young people who are found carrying knives or offending with knives. We also put in place an intensive bail support pilot program for young people who would otherwise be remanded to youth justice custody, enabling the courts to provide for bail. I hope the new government will continue all these initiatives into the future.

I firmly stand by the sentiment that the best way of reducing crime among young people is to divert them away from the criminal justice system. By and large the majority of young people deal successfully with the challenges of adolescence and the transition to adulthood without experiencing serious or lasting difficulties.

However, we all know that there is a small minority of young people who, due to a variety of factors, are at risk of engaging in criminal or antisocial behaviour. These factors must be understood and addressed in an effort to tackle the range and complexity of problems faced by these young people who are at risk. We know that they are very complex individuals who have complex problems. What I am concerned about is the one-size-fits-all approach that the Baillieu government is putting forward with its introduction of mandatory sentencing.

The Brumby Labor government was committed to ensuring that young people are diverted away from the justice system before they progress into an adult life of crime. As a result of that diversionary approach we have a unique dual-track system, which enables the courts to sentence young people aged 18 to 22 to a justice facility rather than an adult prison. Victoria has the most effective youth justice system in Australia.

According to the most recent data collected by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2008-09 Victoria had the lowest ratio of young people under supervision in this country — at 3.2 for every 1000. I understand it is still the case that Victoria has the lowest ratio of young people in youth facilities. This is testament to the fact that diversionary tactics work.

I wish to draw to the attention of the house an excellent report that was produced by the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, of which I was a member at the time, as was our Opposition Whip, Mr Leane, and Mrs Coote. This report was tabled in the house in July 2009. It is entitled Inquiry into Strategies to Prevent High Volume Offending and Recidivism by Young People — Final Report. The Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee found that engaging young people in education and training, constructive leisure activities and/or meaningful employment empowers them and assists in preventing youth offending.

The committee looked at the youth justice group conferencing program as part of its inquiry, and there was a great deal of bipartisan support for those achievements.

Often youth justice deals with some of the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and complex young people in the population, with many having been victims of abuse or violence in their childhood. My understanding is that approximately 60 per cent of young people in youth justice facilities are young people who have had contact with the child protection system. Experiences of rejection and broken promises are prominent among young people at risk, leading to issues with trust, interpersonal relationships and interactions with authority figures.

The committee agreed that overcoming alienation and providing young people with opportunities to build positive connections with the community are essential components of any attempt to reduce high-volume offending.

One initiative is the Ropes program, a diversionary program that operates after a young person is charged by police but before any formal court hearing. First-time offenders aged between 13 and 17 who admit their offence get together with a police officer and undergo a rope-climbing course in an attempt to build bonds and break down the stereotypes and barriers that can exist between police and young offenders. I do not think I am overstating it when I say that the committee members across all the political parties are enthusiastic supporters of the Ropes program after having seen it in action.

Mrs Coote interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – Yes, Mrs Coote, it was excellent. I hope that program continues and is supported into the future.

The community legal service, Youthlaw, considers the Ropes program to be an extremely successful diversionary program, as does Judge Paul Grant, who is the president of the Children’s Court of Victoria. Judge Grant is a strong supporter of the Ropes program and suggested to the committee that it be introduced statewide. Many coalition MPs on that committee recognise that diversionary programs like the Ropes program are extremely worthwhile. I hope they speak up in their party room when the mandatory sentencing legislation arrives.

The previous government also established with the Department of Human Services a new task force to oversee the implementation of a security upgrade, the rollout of training programs for staff and refinements toprocedures at the centre. The bill before the house has come about as a result of two reports, one of which is the Ombudsman’s report. At the time the Ombudsman’s report was tabled in this Parliament last year, 10 of the recommendations contained in the report had already been implemented and another 17 were under way.

While we all acknowledge that there is no single cause or factor contributing to juvenile offending, the coalition’s one-size-fits-all approach to youth crime will not work. Incarceration of young people should only ever take place as a last resort. Alternative strategies such as diversionary programs have proven to be much more successful for the majority of young people.

I am not just concerned about mandatory sentencing, I am also concerned about the Baillieu government’s commitment to supporting Victoria’s young people in many areas.

Since coming to government, the coalition has cut many programs that have been beneficial to young people, like the apprenticeship completion bonus enticing employers to take on more young people and see them through their training, cuts to the Victorian certificate of applied learning, cuts to the FReeZACentral intensive workshops and the ending of the dedicated funding for youth mentoring programs. These are the very programs that give at-risk, disengaged young people a meaningful future and steer them towards further education and training and employment opportunities. The focus should not just be on locking up kids.

I note with great concern that various performance measures contained in this year’s state budget for the youth justice custodial services indicate that the Baillieu government expects to see more young people in detention. On page 225 of budget paper 3 under the performance measure of ‘Annual daily average number of young people in custody — males (15 years plus)’, the target has risen from 130-180 to 140-190.

That was explained in the notes as reflecting ‘policing and sentencing practices impacting on custodial numbers’. Furthermore, the percentage of clients participating in community reintegration activities has been lowered to reflect, as the note describes, ‘the changing profile and reductions in eligibility for community reintegration activities.’

Instead of aiming to reduce the number of young people locked up, this government is expecting to incarcerate more young people. At the same time it has decreased the eligibility of young people to engage in reintegration activities. As I said earlier, the aim should not be to simply lock up more young people but to provide meaningful programs for them when they are incarcerated so that they are successfully rehabilitated.

I was really pleased today when visiting the Parkville youth justice precinct to hear that there is a very real focus by the new director of Youth Justice Custodial Services, Mr Ian Lanyon, on providing greater support to young people in detention in accessing education and training programs. I am very supportive of that measure, and if the government moves to adopt those types of measures and programs, it will receive very strong bipartisan support.

I believe it is not just about locking kids up and throwing away the key, it is about ensuring that they are properly rehabilitated into the community and given a meaningful future. That is what the whole focus of the youth justice framework is about; it is about rehabilitation. Unlike the adult system, there is a very distinct focus in the legislation on the purpose of Children’s Court orders, and that is that the detention of young people is about rehabilitating them. There is no magical solution, of course, but one thing is for sure — and that is, that there cannot be a simplistic approach to such a complex program.

The investment by the Baillieu government in the budget for youth diversion and rehabilitation programs is a positive step forward, but I believe much more can be done in addressing these complex factors.

As I indicated earlier, this bill has come about as a result of two reviews conducted last year into the Parkville youth justice precinct, one by former police chief commissioner, Mr Neil Comrie, following the escape of six boys from the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre in May 2010, and one by the Victorian Ombudsman following a whistleblower’s allegations about conditions at the Parkville precinct in October 2010.

The Brumby government took immediate action following the release of these two reports and committed to implementing the recommendations contained within them.

At the time of the release of the Comrie report the Brumby Labor government committed $16.6 million over four years to overhaul and upgrade security and operations at the centre. The Comrie report recommended a single point of entry for all staff, visitors and vehicles entering and exiting the youth justice facility. That project commenced under the previous government, and I understand the single point of entry will be completed by the end of the year. I saw a slab earlier today, and I certainly hope the rain we have been having of late is not going to be a significant cause of delay for that project. I was advisedin the briefing that it was due for completion in December.

In receiving the government’s briefing on this bill I was told that it was largely a bill that sought to tighten the security measures in our youth justice facilities by reducing any ambiguity in the principal act in relation to security practices. The bill proposes to make key changes in three distinct areas. They are search offences, including the seizure of items, security offences and secrecy offences.

The Children, Youth and Families Act enables searches of visitors and detainees within a youth justice facility. However, I was advised at the briefing that currently there is some ambiguity in relation to searching staff. The definition of ‘visitor’ has been amended in the bill to remove any ambiguity in relation to searches of staff members.

Currently the act defines a visitor to a youth justice facility as ‘a person who visits a youth justice facility to have contact with a detainee’. Under proposed new section 488A, the bill will establish the right to search all people — staff, contractors, detainees and visitors — before entry and exit of the youth justice facility. A visitor will now constitute ‘any person, other than a detainee or an officer, who enters, leaves or remains in a youth justice facility’.

The bill provides that searches will be conducted by officers employed by the department or contracted security staff, although officers who are not departmental employees cannot conduct strip searches. The bill provides that inside the facility searches will be conducted only where the officer in charge considers they are necessary for the security and good order of the facility or for the safety of detainees or staff.

The Community and Public Sector Union has raised some concerns with me about the possibility of staff being searched once they are inside the facility, and I will be exploring some of those issues further during the committee stage of the bill to ensure that all staff and the public clearly understand what is intended by this legislation.

The bill also provides that a person other than a detainee — that is, visitors, staff or contractors but not a judge or magistrate — may be subjected to a formal search using an electronic or mechanical device or an approved dog to detect drugs, weapons or metal articles. They may also be subjected to a frisk search by the quick running of a hand over the person’s outer clothing using a mechanical or electronic device over a person’s outer clothing or, once that is removed, an examination of the person’s overcoat, coat, jacket or any other such clothing that is conveniently and voluntarily removed. None of these individuals is able to be subjected to a strip search or a body cavity search.

I wish to contrast these provisions with new section 488AD, which leaves some doubt as to whether strip searches apply to both visitors and detainees. Under the current act a visitor cannot be asked to submit to a strip search; however, under new section 488AD both a frisk search and a strip search are available to the officer in charge. Whilst a visitor cannot be asked under existing section 488A to submit to a strip search, it is unclear whether a frisk or strip search may be conducted on a visitor under new section 488AD. I will be exploring this issue further in the committee stage of the bill.

Under proposed section 488AC a detainee may be subjected to a strip search but not a body cavity search. The community-based legal service Youthlaw has raised some concerns with me regarding subsection (3) of that section, which allows for reasonable force to be used when conducting a strip search of a detainee. It has suggested that this section be slightly amended to clarify that reasonable force may be considered necessary only if the detainee does not consent to the search.

I will be seeking some clarification of this during the committee stage.

Whilst the bill does not elaborate on a definition of ‘reasonable force’, I presume the appropriate checks and balances will be contained in the regulations. Given the second-reading speech indicates that the juvenile justice operations manual and the regulations are under review, I will be seeking some clarification about what is proposed to be contained in those documents, as they will deal with reasonable force. I believe that is a matter which will be of considerable community concern.

Proposed section 488AD sets out the manner of conducting a search. Before conducting a search of a person other than a detainee, officers will be required to inform any person entering a youth justice facility of their authority to conduct a search, that the person may refuse a search and of the consequences of such a refusal.

A person who does not consent to a search may be prohibited from entering the facility or be ordered to leave the facility. The bill provides for a fine of 5 penalty units.

In the second-reading speech the minister elaborated on this point:

Clear signage and verbal communication will ensure that people entering the centre are informed about what constitutes contraband and what items are permissible to bring into the centre.

Whilst it is not spelt out in the bill exactly what these contraband items are — I will be seeking some clarification during the committee stage — I was advised earlier today on my visit to Parkville that cigarette lighters are contraband items that are seen regularly.

The bill will require all officers conducting searches to do so expeditiously and with regard to the decency and respect of a person being searched. Under proposed section 488AD(4) and (5) strip searches of detainees must be conducted in the presence of another officer, and the detainee must be positioned in such a way that the detainee being searched is not in view of that second officer. The other officer must be of the same sex as the detainee, unless the search is urgently required and an officer of the same sex is not available.

Youthlaw has also raised concerns with me regarding this section and the understanding that all searches are conducted in a culturally sensitive manner — for example, female staff are to search Muslim girls and women. I would prefer that all female detainees in all circumstances are searched by female staff.

In the second-reading speech the minister specified that a strip search of any detainee would be conducted in private, but I have not seen clear evidence of that in the bill, and I will be seeking assurances of that during the committee stage of the bill. I hope some of these issues will be cleared up by the minister in the committee stage so that, as I have said, legal services working with young people can be given some assurances about how these provisions will be able to operate in the future.

In relation to the seizing of items, an officer may seize contraband found as a result of a search. These items include things such as a weapon, an explosive substance, a drug of dependence and/or items suspected to have been stolen or used in the commission of an offence. Any item that is seized must be included in a seizure register, and the officer in charge must be informed of items that have been seized.

The seized items must be held securely until the end of potential legal proceedings. The person from whom the items are seized must be informed of whether the items will be returned and to whom they will be returned, in the case of stolen items, or whether the items will be disposed of. Money that is seized must be returned to the person upon leaving the youth justice facility, except where money is suspected of being stolen or obtained as a result of an offence. It appears that purely suspicion alone can trigger the seizure of an article under this subsection.

The bill does not go into detail as to what information or belief is necessary to be held by a youth justice facility officer before coming to such a conclusion. I will be seeking to raise these issues during the committee stage. If an item has been disposed of, it must be recorded in the seizure register and the disposal must be conducted by at least two officers.

In relation to these new security offences, the bill introduces a number of provisions. The existing provisions of the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 will be amended to more closely reflect section 32 of the Corrections Act 1986, so it will now be an offence for a person who is not authorised to enter or attempt to enter a youth justice facility or communicate or attempt to communicate with a detainee who is on temporary leave from a youth justice facility if the communication threatens the security of the youth justice facility or any person. A person must first be warned that continued communication constitutes an offence.

The bill provides the following penalties. A case in relation to a child involves 15 penalty units or three months imprisonment. A case in relation to an adult involves two years imprisonment, which is the same as the Corrections Act 1986. The bill provides 5 penalty units for refusing to submit to a search and an order to leave. I believe the intent of this section is that there only be a penalty for refusing to leave — as we were advised at the briefing — but I will be seeking some clarification about the operations of this provision at the committee stage.

Youthlaw has raised concerns about the excessive penalty in this section in regard to children — that is, a $150 fine or three months imprisonment. It has suggested that perhaps a warning system be first implemented prior to these penalties being incurred by a child or that the penalties for a child offender should be reduced.

The final part of the bill relates to secrecy offences. The bill introduces entirely new secrecy provisions about which I have some concerns. The bill makes it an offence to:

… record, disclose, communicate or make use of confidential information, except to the extent that is reasonably necessary to perform a duty or function of that position, or to exercise a power of that position, under this or any other Act.

The bill provides for a penalty of 5 penalty units, which is the same as in the Corrections Act 1986. It provides a very extensive definition of ‘confidential information’. It includes items such as information given to the youth parole board, the emergency procedures or plans of a youth justice facility, management or operational security measures and information concerning theinvestigation of a breach or possible breach of the law by either a detainee or an officer, information given to a court or — and I will read paragraph (1)(f) of the proposed section:

information of a business, commercial or financial nature relating to the provision of services within a youth justice facility, if the disclosure of that information may threaten the good order or security of the youth justice facility or any person …

This last paragraph of the definition of confidential information is very broad in nature. It covers details such as the number of security staff employed and details of cleaning or other contracts and could in fact be used to deny the release of all sorts of information through FOI applications.

The secrecy provisions apply to departmental officers as well as to volunteers and contracted service providers such as the YMCA, which provides sport and recreation programs. They also apply to a person appointed by the department or an independent body conducting an investigation of a youth justice facility or visiting a youth justice facility. In the case of parliamentary committees — for example, the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, which has previously conducted an inquiry into the youth justice system — I have concerns that even members of Parliament could be precluded from discussing in a parliamentary committee anything they have seen on a visit if it could be said to threaten the good order of the facility.

Exceptions to the disclosure provisions are contained in the bill.

These include evidence in criminal proceedings where the disclosure is in accordance with the minister’s written authority; disclosing confidential information to the Ombudsman or to his or her officers; photographs being disclosed to the police; information being provided to members of police or the Australian Federal Police regarding preventive detention orders under terrorism legislation or for the security of any youth justice facility or the safety of a detainee; and disclosing confidential information as authorised under another act such as the Whistleblowers Protection Act 2001 or child protection legislation. Under the Health Records Act 2001 disclosures are specifically excluded.

We have some concerns about the very wide scope of the confidentiality provisions and how they will operate in practice.

I certainly hope that the bipartisan approach to this issue — for example, the willingness of the minister’s office today to facilitate a tour of the Parkville detention facilities — will continue into the future and that these confidentiality provisions will not be used to prevent critical information from being disclosed to parliamentarians in the future. I note with some concern, however, that when I submitted a question on notice to the minister seeking information on whether the recommendations contained in the Comrie report had been implemented, I received a two-line answer. I would like to put that answer on the record, which was:

The report by Mr Neil Comrie … specifically relates to the Parkville youth justice precinct.

However, some areas for action will be considered for implementation across the youth justice custodial services system.

On this side of the house we are all getting very used to getting non-answers to questions on notice, but I think that is a particularly unhelpful response.

Ms Pennicuik interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – You are absolutely right, Ms Pennicuik, and I certainly hope that more information will be forthcoming in the future. It forces opposition members to resort to asking a lot of questions during the committee stages of bills, and if these are our only opportunities, then I can tell members that we are going to have some very long committee stages in the future.

As I outlined earlier, while the opposition will not be opposing the bill, we do have some concerns with regard to the underlying philosophy of this government’s handling of youth offenders.

Locking up more young people while cutting back on programs that aim to address the more complex needs of these young people is not a path we should be going down.

I take this opportunity to refer to a media release that was put out by Jesuit Social Services. On Friday evening, with my colleague the member for Narre Warren North in the other place, I had the pleasure of attending the Jesuit Social Services National Justice Symposium — –

Ms Pennicuik interjected.

Ms MIKAKOS – And Ms Pennicuik, of course; I do apologise. I also attended most of the conference on the following day. I thought it was an excellent and extremely worthwhile conference. It was disappointing that the Minister for Corrections attended to open the conference and then hastily departed.

He did not have an opportunity to hear from former Victorian Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent, AO, QC, who delivered an excellent keynote speech at the opening of the conference. What Frank Vincent had to say was that minimum mandatory sentences would lead to injustice for some young people. I will read from the mediarelease released by Jesuit Social Services following the conference, which quotes Mr Vincent having said:

… minimum mandatory sentences had the potential to not only lead to injustice for some young people but will also be counter to the long-term achievement of a safe community.

‘A humane system recognises that prisons are inherently damaging institutions, I know from nearly 50 years working in the criminal justice system that detention in a youth facility or an adult prison even for a very short period can have profound impact on the lives of young people’.

‘We need to work on the basis of prison as a last resort. The research shows that putting people in jail makes it more likely that they will reoffend once released’.

I think parliamentarians from both sides of the political fence should listen to the very wise words of Frank Vincent, who has worked not only as a senior member of the judiciary in this state but also for many years as the head of the youth appeals board. I think his views should carry some weight.

To be fair to the Minister for Community Services, I believe her heart is in the right place. I think she is a person who cares about young people in our state — both those in juvenile justice and those in the child protection system. But my concern is that I do not believe that her view of the world is going to carry weight in the cabinet. I think there are those in the cabinet, such as the Attorney-General and the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, who are committed to a law and order approach, and I believe the mandatory sentencing debate that we are going to have fairly soon will be just the start of a more punitive approach by the Baillieu government.

I think the mandatory sentencing debate around youth offenders is going to galvanise youth groups around Victoria; certainly all the ones I have spoken to are extremely concerned by the coming legislation.

I hope the government will have a long, hard look at its approach to juvenile offending and connect the dots when it comes to increased recidivism rates. Everyone is concerned about youth offending and wants to see young people rehabilitated, have a meaningful life and make a meaningful contribution to society, but I do not believe the government has come up with the right approach to achieve that. I have raised a range of issues that I will be pursuing in the committee stage, and I have done so throughout my contribution to give the minister an opportunity to pursue answers to those issues when we get to the committee stage — hopefully later today.

The Baillieu Government has failed to provide funding to a successful youth mentoring project in Geelong, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Children and Young Adults, Jenny Mikakos said today.

Visiting the Barwon Youth Services, Ms Mikakos said the Baillieu Government had committed no further funding for youth mentoring after the end of this year.

“Geelong Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentoring Project is one of 12 youth mentoring programs across Victoria that is losing its funding, despite its success helping vulnerable young people,” she said.

“This program helps dozens of at-risk young people every year, but Mr Baillieu couldn’t find room in this year’s budget for the $50,000 a year needed to keep the program running.

“This project works off a shoestring budget, but has a high impact.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentoring Project provides one to one community based and group mentoring options for mentors and young people who live, work or study in Geelong and need additional support, friendship, skill and personal development.

The youth mentoring program, Mentoring and Capacity Building Initiative, was started by Labor in 2005 to help address disadvantage and make Victoria a fairer state.

“Without the targeted assistance from the youth mentoring program, Mr Baillieu is effectively saying to young people from Geelong that ‘you are on your own’,” Ms Mikakos said.

“If Mr Baillieu lets this program disappear, not only will hundreds of young Victorians be affected, but dozens of volunteer mentors will be lost and support staff will lose their jobs or have their hours cut back.

“Given Mr Baillieu’s refusal to support other programs that assist young people such as the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL), Take-a-Break, Kids Go For Your Life and FReeZa Central, this cut comes as no surprise.”

The Baillieu Government has failed to provide funding to a successful youth mentoring project in Lilydale, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Children and Young Adults, Jenny Mikakos said today.

 Visiting the Shire of Yarra Ranges Youth Services Centre, Ms Mikakos said the Baillieu Government had committed no further funding for youth mentoring after the end of this year. 

“Jindi Woraback Youth Mentoring Program, run by the Shire, is one of 12 youth mentoring programs across Victoria that is losing its funding, despite its success helping vulnerable young people,” she said. 

 Ms Mikakos said local Liberal MP Christine Fyffe needed to stand up to Mr Baillieu and demand the project funding be extended. 

 “Why hasn’t Ms Fyffe asked Mr Baillieu to visit to Lilydale to meet with mentors and young people to explain why he is cutting their funding?” Ms Mikakos said. 

 “This program helps dozens of at-risk young people every year, but Mr Baillieu couldn’t find room in this year’s budget for the $50,000 a year needed to keep the program running. 

 “This project works off a shoestring budget, but has a high impact.” 

 Jindi Woraback Youth Mentoring Program provides one to one community based and group mentoring options for mentors and young people who live, work or study in the Shire of Yarra Ranges and need additional support, friendship, skill and personal development. 

 The youth mentoring program, Mentoring and Capacity Building Initiative, was started by Labor in 2005 to help address disadvantage and make Victoria a fairer state. 

 “Without the targeted assistance from the youth mentoring program, Mr Baillieu is effectively saying to young people in Melbourne’s outer east that ‘you are on your own’,” Ms Mikakos said. 

 ”If Mr Baillieu lets this program disappear, not only will hundreds of young Victorians be affected, but dozens of volunteer mentors will be lost and support staff will lose their jobs or have their hours cut back. 

 “Given Mr Baillieu’s refusal to support other programs that assist young people such as the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL), Take-a-Break, Kids Go For Your Life and Freeza Central, this cut comes as no surprise.”

The Baillieu Government has failed to provide funding to a successful youth mentoring project in Emerald, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Children and Young Adults, Jenny Mikakos said today.

Visiting the Emerald Centre for Hope and Outreach (ECHO) Centre, Ms Mikakos said the Baillieu Government had committed no further funding for youth mentoring after the end of this year.

“Beyond All Expectations Mentoring Project, run by ECHO, is one of 12 youth mentoring programs across Victoria that is losing its funding, despite its success helping vulnerable young people,” she said.

Ms Mikakos said local Liberal MP Brad Battin needed to stand up to Mr Baillieu and demand the project funding be extended.

“Why hasn’t Mr Battin asked Mr Baillieu to visit Emerald to meet with mentors and young people to explain why he is cutting their funding?” Ms Mikakos said.

“This program helps dozens of at-risk young people every year, but Mr Baillieu couldn’t find room in this year’s budget for the $50,000 a year needed to keep the program running.

“This project works off a shoestring budget, but has a high impact.”

According to ECHO Beyond all Expectations builds resilience, self awareness, accredited skills and knowledge in preparation for work and the world ‘beyond’ school by providing experiences in a real workplace environment.

The youth mentoring program, Mentoring and Capacity Building Initiative, was started by Labor in 2005 to help address disadvantage and make Victoria a fairer state.

“Without the targeted assistance from the youth mentoring program, Mr Baillieu is effectively saying to young people in Emerald ‘you are on your own’,” Ms Mikakos said.

“If Mr Baillieu lets this program disappear, not only will hundreds of young Victorians be affected, but dozens of volunteer mentors will be lost and support staff will lose their jobs or have their hours cut back.

“Given Mr Baillieu’s refusal to support other programs that assist young people such as the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL), Take-a-Break, Kids Go For Your Life and FReeZACentral, this cut comes as no surprise.”

The Minister for Health, David Davis, also had a lot to say during last year’s election campaign about the Baillieu government’s commitment to delivering 800 hospital beds in its first term of government and 100 new beds this year, but now that the Baillieu government is in office it remains tight-lipped about just when and where these beds will be delivered.

The Australian Nursing Federation has raised concerns about hospitals closing beds only to reopen them down the track as new. Mr Davis has even suggested that these new beds may include patients receiving treatment at home rather than in hospital.

The Austin Hospital and the Northern Hospital are both situated in growth corridors and will need to expand in the future.

News reports last week about the struggling emergency department at the Austin Hospital have highlighted the urgent need for more resources, and true to the Baillieu government’s form, 37 of the Austin Hospital’s maintenance crew workers were sacked last week as these jobs were outsourced to private contractors. Inadequate funding in this year’s budget to service the growing needs of Victorian patients with no plan for Victorian workers is what we have come to expect from this government. A leopard never changes its spots.

During the campaign leading up to the last state election Labor committed $15 million to the Mental Health Research Institute so that it could work with Prana Biotechnology to support critical research to advance a drug treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Prana’s research received strong praise from leading scientists, including Professor Sir Gustav Nossal, who was quoted as saying that Labor’s funding commitment ‘will help to ensure that what could be one of the greatest ever Australian medical discoveries stays here in Victoria’. That quote is from a Mental Health Research Institute media release published on 5 November 2010. Labor’s commitment was also warmly welcomed by many aged-care industry leaders, including National Seniors Australia, Aged and Community Care Victoria and Alzheimer’s Australia.

The action I seek is that the minister follow Labor’s lead in committing to fund this world-leading research for the thousands of Victorians, Australians and people around the world who would benefit from it.