Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a proud Victorian born and bred, never did I think that our great state would have the worst government in our nation. Let's be clear. The Andrews government has overseen the most rotten and dark period in Victoria's history. Don't let Daniel Andrews get away with it. Daniel Andrews is the man who locked Victoria down for a record 262 days. He was responsible for the hotel quarantine catastrophe that directly led to 801 deaths. He unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets onto the streets of Melbourne. He dismisses, belittles and sneers at anyone who doesn't agree with his extreme views.

Daniel Andrews has his fingerprints all over the health crisis Victorians are facing. Under Daniel Andrews, getting treatment in a hospital is harder than ever to get, and, when you can get treatment, it might be at a tent outside a hospital. Ambulance waiting times are blowing out—that's if you can get through to an ambulance via triple 0. People are dying because they cannot get an ambulance—including a constituent in my electorate, in Mitcham, who died three hours after calling for an ambulance. And more sick Victorians are spending more than 24 hours in emergency departments.

The Victorian economy and the weakness of its budget is impacting the cost of living for all Victorians as well. Our debt, as Victorians, of $167 billion is higher than New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. Andrews blames COVID, but the rest of Australia faced COVID as well and is in a far better position. Small businesses have been smashed, and Andrews just doesn't care about them. Having never worked in the private sector in his life, it's no wonder he has no knowledge of or concern for the ongoing pressures that small businesses are facing.

And who can forget the lies? In 2014 Daniel Andrews looked down the barrel of a camera and promised he wouldn't introduce any new or increased taxes. Well, after eight years we instead have 43 new and increased taxes, after promising there would be none—a blatant and bold-faced lie. 'How can you introduce 43 new taxes and still have the highest debt in the country?', you might ask. Well, one way is the criminal mismanagement of infrastructure projects—one of the worst being the $4.7 billion blowout on the so-called West Gate Tunnel project—not to mention the dirty deal with the Albanese government to cancel projects throughout the state to funnel into Daniel Andrews's pet project, the Suburban Rail Loop. It has a price tag that's gone from $50 billion originally to $125 billion now, and some are projecting it will cost more than $200 billion and not be completed for 25 years. It is a project described by Macroeconomic Advisory as 'the worst infrastructure project of all time'.

To fund these blown-out projects, we've consistently seen Labor rip money out of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Thousands of commuters are reminded each and every day when they sit in traffic on the Eastern Freeway that Daniel Andrews wasted $1.3 billion not to build the East West Link, a project that would have been completed years ago at a fraction of the cost that it would cost to build today. We see road upgrades being cancelled throughout the east, including the Wellington Road upgrade, the Dorset Road upgrade and the Napoleon Road upgrade, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars ripped out of upgrading dirt roads in the outer east to funnel into Daniel Andrews's pet project of the Suburban Rail Loop.

This Saturday let's make sure Victoria gets a fresh start. Let's ensure that Daniel Andrews does not get away with it. The darkness, the terrible period that we've had under this Premier for the last eight years, doesn't have to continue. Victoria can reclaim its position as the greatest state in this country, but it will not happen with Daniel Andrews and the way in which he has mismanaged every aspect of our healthcare system, our economy and our major projects, and the way in which he sneers and looks down on Victorians. I say to all Victorians: don't let Daniel Andrews get away with it.