Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to condemn the Victorian government's budget delivered on Tuesday, which, yet again, delivered so very little for the people of the Mornington Peninsula. I woke this morning to the celebration of a new cross-Peninsula bus line, only to find it was money for planning a bus line with no announced start date. But, I will take it, and I say thank you. But, there was nothing for the Rosebud Hospital, where some surgery has been stopped because its facilities are no longer fit for purpose. There was nothing for the Jetty Road overpass, the site of daily congestion along the Peninsula, even though $75 million was provided for it by the coalition government more than three years ago. There was nothing for social housing, even though existing public housing properties lie empty and are falling apart, and we now have 10 less public housing dwellings on the Peninsula than we had in June 2018.

There was nothing for Baxter Rail, which remains the only single-track diesel line in the entire metropolitan rail network. There was nothing for Flinders Pier to protect this much loved site for locals and tourists alike. There was nothing for our great sporting groups in Summerville, Dromana and Mornington, all of which are operating beyond their intended lifespan and are bursting at the seams. Despite their degrading facilities, these sporting teams remain the lifeblood of our magnificent community.

In failing to fund any of these projects, they've put at risk $300 million from the Commonwealth, funds which were provided for the Peninsula in previous coalition federal budgets. You may ask: where does the highest taxing state in the nation spend Victorians' hard-earned money? Well, it turns out they've tripled the number of Victorian bureaucrats who earn more than $500,000 a year and the proportion of Victorian public servants earning more than $350,000 a year is up by 140 per cent. Three years ago the Andrews government budgeted a salary bill of $26 billion this year, but the total price tag has actually come in at $33 billion.

The Victorian budget is currently forecast to increase the state's net debt by 43 per cent from $116 billion in 2022-23 to $166 billion in 2025-26. Interest payments will grow as a share of government spending from nearly five per cent to eight per cent by 2025-2026. Interest payments on Labor's debt will almost double to $7.4 billion by 2025-2026, equating to $24,000 for every single Victorian.

Victorians are now the most highly taxed Australians. The budget plans to increase the tax take by 14 per cent to 2025-26, with some tax revenues like payroll tax increasing to well over 20 per cent. Land tax is set to soar, yet again, which will just hike rents on the Peninsula, which are already beyond the means of most single individuals and some households as well. Despite this tax hike, masked as a COVID-19 measure, Victoria has the largest debt in the nation. It's more than New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. The Andrews government should be ashamed. It is driving Victoria into the ground.