Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my hope that today brings an end to one of Victoria's saddest political periods: hopefully the vacant position that exists in the Victorian Legislative Council—and has existed for the last 2½ months due to my vacation of that seat—will be filled.

The Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has simply decided to fly in the face of convention—to fly in the face of democracy—and has refused to have a joint sitting of the house of the Victorian parliament so that the duly elected Luke O'Sullivan from the National Party could take his rightful place in the legislative council in the Victorian parliament. This 2½ months of waiting was simply brought about by the fact that the Premier did not want to have the full complement of members in the legislative council and was quite happy for the Victorian people to go 2½ months with being not represented by a member of the Northern Victoria Region.

It was at the end of July that Luke O'Sullivan was preselected. As the successful preselected candidate, he should have been admitted into the Victorian parliament immediately upon the resumption of the Victorian parliament. However, for many months now, Daniel Andrews has decided that he would not have a joint sitting and that he would refuse a democratically elected member of the Victorian parliament to take his rightful place in the Victorian parliament.

Whilst we are happy to have others across the chamber lecture us about finances, Daniel Andrews just ripped up $1.1 billion for a road that he did not build, but he had to pay $1.1 billion in compensation. Daniel Andrews has also gone down the path of building sky rail. Daniel Andrews has also tried to attack the CFA. Unfortunately, all of those political issues, in my opinion, are dwarfed by the fact that he has simply refused to allow a duly elected member of parliament his rightful place in the House. It now looks as though this stand-off is going to be finished by today. We are hoping, very much so, that Luke O'Sullivan will be a duly elected member of parliament. I know Luke personally and I am sure he will do an amazing job.

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