Former government: performance
03-March-2011
Mr BURGESS (Hastings) -- It is a pleasure to rise today to speak in the grievance debate. I grieve for the people of Victoria and in particular for the people of my electorate. I grieve for the loss of opportunity during 11 long years of waste and mismanagement, and I grieve for Labor's waste of more than $400 billion over those 11 years.
The waste includes projects such as myki, smart meters and of course former Minister for Water Tim Holding's and former Premier John Brumby's monument to Labor's inability to manage money or projects, the desalination plant. The only true monument involved here is the monumental mess Labor made of its contractual arrangements and the overall arrangements for the establishment of that plant.
It is now a great challenge for the new and energetic Baillieu government to overcome the handicaps left by Labor and its great neglect of the state over the last 11 years and to put Victorians back where they were: at the forefront of achievement and quality of life throughout the state.
Research carried out by Roy Morgan Research prior to the state election identified that Hastings was 34 per cent more likely to be concerned about law and order than any other electorate in the state. Is it any wonder that was the case? There has certainly been a significant downgrading of law and order facilities throughout Victoria, and under the Labor regime Victoria had the lowest police numbers per capita of any state in Australia. It had the lowest spending on police of any state in Australia. Assaults in Victoria were up 69.6 per cent. Certainly in my region rape was up 31.9 per cent, and property damage was up 41.1 per cent.
What did the previous Labor government do in response to escalating crime and the great concern expressed by people, and particularly by people in the Hastings electorate? It massively reduced police
numbers in my electorate compared to growth in the population. There was a huge increase in crime, which was reacted to with a 20 per cent reduction in front-line policing. That equated to a 48 per cent increase in violent crime over the same period. The Brumby government also tried to close the Hastings regional 24-hour police station. That is a great reaction from a state government: when a community is feeling vulnerable and seeing crime rise, there is a reduction in spending on police! It was a great idea to close a 24-hour police station! That is what the former state government tried to do. Of course the Hastings electorate community did not put up with that. It fought back strongly and was able to keep the police station open, and it remains so.
In stark contrast, the coalition's response has been a commitment of $10 million to put a 24-hour police station in Somerville, and land is being located at the moment on which to build that station.
The Hastings police station will remain a 24-hour station and keep its current contingent, which means it will be operating over a smaller area but will have similar numbers of police to those it has at the moment. There is also $250 000 for CCTV (closed-circuit television) implementation in the Hastings retail area, and $1 million for land for a 24-hour police station in Langwarrin.
On top of that, as we heard in debates on other bills last night, there will be two armed PSOs (protective services officers) on all railway stations after 6.00 p.m. until the last train each night at the major regional stations and across metropolitan areas. That includes the stations on the Stony Point line. I am very pleased to hear that, because we have had a great rise in unruly behaviour and people being accosted and interfered with on the Stony Point line. A line needs to be drawn in the sand and the community needs to be able to speak through its law enforcement officers, letting the perpetrators know that it is just not something that will be accepted.
It is very pleasing that those PSOs will be stationed on our railway stations. That will make the travelling public of my community much more comfortable.
Hastings also has the highest number of people with trade certificates of any Victorian electorate, and yet there is nowhere to train them. This is another area that has been badly neglected by Labor; over the last 11 years there has been virtually no increase in the availability of training for those people. The Hastings electorate has been calling out for an increase to assist not only its youth but also its businesses. We have very strong businesses throughout the Hastings electorate, including BlueScope Steel, Esso and Inghams, and we have a great number of young people who would like to be able to be employed by those businesses, but there is no way to put those two things together. The coalition's response to those problems has been to expand Somerville Secondary College, which had been limited to years 7 to 10 by the previous Labor government, to cover years 11 and 12.
That has been well accepted by the local community.
We have also committed to building beside that secondary college a $4 million technical college which will recognise the differences in how children learn. Some children struggle with the core components of their education curriculum but obviously do very well at the more technical tasks. This would recognise and embrace each child's individual talents and allow them to excel and take on careers that they find rewarding and that are also rewarding for the community because these skills are both in short supply and badly needed.
In developing that technical college we will be working very closely with local businesses -- again, the Essos, the BlueScopes and the Inghams of the area -- to put together that curriculum to work with other service providers to make sure that we are giving the best to our youth and then developing the best employees for our businesses.
We want to deliver high-quality employees for our high-quality businesses. The indirect benefits of such a policy will be that it will re-engage local youth in the education system, reduce youth unemployment and reduce antisocial behaviour of young people who are disengaged.
On another point, I grieve for the way the Hastings electorate has been treated in respect of the port of Hastings. People would remember that under the Bracks government the policy was to move the main operations to the port of Hastings, and a lot of planning went on to have that done. When there was the change to the Brumby government, all of that went out the window. Instead of being an independent port, Hastings was then planned to be a port that was completely subservient and 100 per cent owned and controlled by the Port of Melbourne Authority. What a ridiculous situation, to have a corporation run its competitor. It is like saying there would be no difficulty with Coles taking over Woolworths.
That was particularly the case with the way the previous Labor government intended to deal with the port of Hastings. It gave complete ownership and control of the port of Hastings to the Port of Melbourne Authority, and what that did for the local community in my electorate was guarantee that Hastings would become and remain the dumping ground for the port of Melbourne. The perfect example of that was the
attempted establishment of a bitumen plant at Crib Point. The coalition's response is a commitment to legislate very soon to divide those two ports again to remove the control and ownership of the Port of Melbourne Authority and again make Hastings an independent port that is able to use its natural advantages to compete on a level footing with the port of Melbourne. As we know, competition improves efficiency and generally produces better outcomes for both businesses and the community.
Allowing local management of the port of Hastings will also allow the port to pick and choose what sorts of business it wants to utilise the valuable land that is around the port, and to bring in the types of businesses that will provide jobs that will add value rather than just something like a bitumen facility, which is what both the previous Labor government and the Port of Melbourne Authority had in mind for Hastings.
It will also produce improved efficiency and economy because competition between two ports like that will ensure that they are both working at their optimum. Under the new government there will be no industrialisation or development south of Hastings and the Stony Point line will not be used to move freight to and from the port of Hastings. We have also ruled out a freight line through Pearcedale, which is critical for the people who live in that community. They want to know that there will be no freight line put through Pearcedale, and we can confirm that that is the case. There will be an up-front, independent environmental, financial and social impact study before any of the work is done, and it will be subject to that.
I hark back to Labor's policy that would have put a toxic dump in Crib Point. Prior to the 2006 election the Bracks government, as it was then, made a written promise to the community of Hastings that no bitumen storage facility would be built in Crib Point.
Immediately following that promise, Labor backflipped and approved the facility. The Mornington Peninsula Shire Council unanimously rejected the proposal for this bitumen facility. Of those surveyed in the community, 97.3 per cent rejected it out of hand. It was even unanimously rejected by the committee of review appointed by the Minister for Planning after he called the project in, yet the minister, who is now the member for Essendon, approved it. The building permit for the proposal that is the result of this personal approval is currently the only challenge to the plan to prevent the industrialisation of the areas south of Hastings. That is something I am working towards, as are the government, the Minister for Planning, the council and the department. It is the only problem that stands in the way of achieving that result. As I said, the council, the state member, the federal member and most importantly the community are all against the facility. It is only the inappropriate actions of the previous Labor government that are leaving any part of that process in doubt.
Another plan of the previous Labor government was the demolition of a large part of the iconic, historic Hastings jetty. Most people would know Hastings as a fishing village, and most photographs you look at or stories you hear regarding the Hastings township involve the Hastings jetty in one respect or another. The previous Labor government planned to bulldoze this historic, iconic jetty and put in its place a floating piece of concrete, a pontoon. I am working with the minister and the department to overturn this destructive plan as well. The new plan is to refurbish the Hastings jetty in keeping with its precious historic and iconic nature and more importantly in keeping with the wishes of the community.
The Labor government also refused to upgrade the inadequately protected level crossings on the Stony Point railway line. Within my four-year term in the previous Parliament two people were killed on those unprotected crossings.
The campaign I fought with the community was successful in having the level crossings upgraded, but we had to drag the previous Labor government kicking and screaming to put in place these measures to protect people's lives. That is an absolute disgrace. Congratulations go to the community on its successful fight.
Under Labor's discredited planning laws the Mornington Peninsula was treated very much as part of the Melbourne metropolitan area. The energetic and new Baillieu government has committed to putting in place a Mornington Peninsula-only planning scheme that will see precious areas of the peninsula protected.
Motion agreed to.