Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Victorians are a parochial bunch. We love where we live and we are proud of it. Almost all Melburnians know how many times in a row we've been voted the most liveable city in the world. I say to the Sydney chair, that is seven years in a row. I'm sure we're all proud of today's testing and vaccination numbers. But, while we are proud of where we live and the people who live there with us, others have sung a different tune. Teddy Whitten famously told the Vics to 'stick it right up them'. Well, today the Morrison government has stuck it right to us.

Yesterday the Treasurer, who's from Victoria but not for Victoria, gloated about new figures in the economy. These figures are built on the back of Victorian businesses and workers, but in that same press conference he said Victorian workers and businesses were on their own, the same Victorian workers who had built the figures he was gloating about. In case anyone needed any more evidence the Morrison government is not on our side, they've said we are on our own. It's interesting because they are turning their backs on the people they are supposedly representing here in this place.

Let's look at this colour coded spreadsheet. They love these things. I should have included the margins each member has in their seat and then maybe the Prime Minister would do something! But let's look at it. The member for Higgins had 4,500 businesses and nearly 14,000 workers in her seat on JobKeeper in March this year. They've been abandoned. There were similar numbers in the Treasurer's seat. In the member for Chisholm's seat—this is a real kicker given how contested this seat will be—over 4,000 businesses and 13,500 workers have been abandoned by her. Perhaps the member for Goldstein, busy yesterday screeching about his plans to destroy superannuation, was too busy to fight for the over 4,000 businesses in his electorate who were on JobKeeper in March. There were nearly 12,000 in the health minister's seat. The Assistant Treasurer is not on the side of the 3,500 businesses in Deakin. The education minister neglected 3,500 businesses in Aston. The member for Latrobe has abandoned 10,000 workers in his community.

A former member for Kooyong, when not selling iron to the country looking to build ships to fight us in the war on the sea, spoke a lot about the 'forgotten people'. His successor is forgetting 6.6 million people, his fellow Victorians. The party of Menzies, Holt, Fraser and Peacock has been reduced to treating Victorians like this, not providing us support in our hour of need. They are nothing more than a government from Sydney and for Sydney. Victoria, a proud state, was once the jewel in the Liberal Party crown. Now they treat us like the dirt under their feet.