Mr PALLAS  (Tarneit) — There is only one certainty in this
debate on the east-west link, and that is that the people of Victoria deserve a
right to have a say on a key piece of infrastructure. By the government’s own
admission, this project could cost up to $18 billion, but this government,
which is so afraid of its own shadow but is so arrogant in its direction and
intent that it wants to cast aside the will of the people, seems to be intent
on hurtling towards introducing a piece of infrastructure for which there is no
evident need in terms of the case that the government seeks to put to the
Victorian people. There is no evident need for it because those opposite are so
afraid of the Victorian people and their judgement.

One of my favourite television shows is Utopia on the ABC.
It is a show about the difficult process of taking uncosted, inadequately
planned and fundamentally flawed schemes and passing them off as
nation-building. I have news for members of this government: that show is not a
documentary but a satire. If it wants to be identified as the foolish
government that it is, it should rush headlong into building a piece of
infrastructure that it has failed to justify to the Victorian people. There is
nothing more transparent than that this is a government hurtling towards
disaster and seeking to drag the Victorian people with it.

Just days out from the 2010 election, after having sneakily
refuted on ABC radio the idea that the members of the now government had any
intention of building an east-west link, those members rushed out a media
release in which they actually accused me of a Laurel and Hardy routine, of all
things.

The only slapstick renditions we are getting in this place
come day to day from members of this sick joke of a government, which is afraid
of its own shadow and definitely afraid of the people of Victoria and their
judgement.

The government put that panicked protest forward before the
people of Victoria because it was worried about what the people of Victoria
would say about this project. When members of the then government went to the
people and said, ‘They have a secret plan for an east-west road link joining
the Eastern Freeway to the Tullamarine Freeway’, what did those opposite say?
They said, ‘We’ve got no plans’. I should read to the house the words of the
now Minister for Public Transport, because they are important. He said:

You’re not going to drive yourself out of problems … our
view is that the answer is an efficient … public transport system.

Just to complete the fraud upon the Victorian people, he
went on to say that they had no plans for an east-west road link. Of course
they have no plans! Why do we have to take their word when they say that they
have plans? They have certainly produced nothing that would demonstrate that
they have a coherent view about delivering infrastructure. This is a government
whose members, after getting rid of the Premier the people voted for, the
Premier who actually never saw this plan come to a point where the government
had committed to it, then installed a bloke nobody voted for, a Premier that
nobody wants. It is a government that specialises in avoiding votes because its
members are so afraid of the judgement of the people of Victoria. What cowardice.
There is $18 billion of taxpayers funds being committed to a project that
government members do not even have the intestinal fortitude to put to the
Victorian people. It is cowardice upon cowardice. It is a government whose
members are not prepared to make their case in a transparent way to the
Victorian people.

Who says that you should put to the Victorian people these
things that are so critically important to the livability and the effective
delivery of infrastructure and ultimately to the performance of Victoria? The
answer is that it is no less an authority than Infrastructure Australia. It has
basically said that all public infrastructure projects valued at more than $1
billion should be subject to a cost-benefit analysis, with the results made
public before the project starts. That is Infrastructure Australia’s
preference.

As members know, the idea that this government would hold itself to account before the people of this state is a joke, because this is a joke of a government. Not only are its members prepared to get rid of the Premier the people voted for and install a Premier nobody voted for — at the head of a government that nobody in this state wants — but avoiding votes has clearly been at the front and centre of their minds. They have been acting with their typical signature panic to sign up on a project only weeks before an election. What cowardice from a government whose members will not hold themselves up to account by the Victorian people. Let us not hear any more bloated lecturing from those opposite about democracy and Westminster principles. They have done nothing but distort them. You could see no greater distortion of the Westminster principles than this government’s fear of the Victorian people, the fear of government members about a vote in this place on a project that goes so fundamentally to the wellbeing of Victoria and its livability into the future.

This project is simply not a priority of Victorians, as is
shown in an Age/Neilsen poll. Perhaps even the Liberal Party is doing some polling
of its own. I suspect that it is and that its polling is saying to Liberal
members, ‘Avoid a vote on this, whatever you do. Present the people of Victoria
with a foregone conclusion. Treat them like serfs. Whatever you do, don’t bring
them into your confidence — don’t believe that the people of Victoria have a
genuine role to participate in a judgement about where $18 billion of their
funds should go’.

Labor has taken the people of Victoria into its confidence.
What we have said is that there are 50 level crossings that will be removed
from across Victoria and will be fully funded. That is what a government should
do. A government should have the courage of its convictions, and that is what
those opposite do not have.

For all the Treasurer likes to boast and for all his
boasting and excitement in this place, let us not forget about what he told
this place just yesterday when he said:

When you make the wrong choices on infrastructure … you
are not fit to run this state.

Who ultimately makes choices on infrastructure? Ultimately
it is the people of Victoria, and those are the people this government has
excluded. Its refusal to allow a parliamentary vote is nothing short of
cowardice from this government. What this government has refused to tell the
people of Victoria — —

 Mr O’Brien interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER — Order! The Treasurer will stop
interjecting.

Mr PALLAS — The Treasurer refused to tell the people of
Victoria the facts when he was before the Public Accounts and Estimates
Committee, when he was given the opportunity.

Mr K. Smith interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER — Order! The member for Bass is warned.

Mr PALLAS — The Treasurer was asked whether the people of
Victoria would know before the election what the level of tolls would be and
what the availability charge would be. That is a recurrent payment of hundreds
of millions of dollars that the Victorian people will have to pay every year
for this project, but will they know about that before the election? Will they
know what impact this project will have on state debt — state debt that this
Treasurer has tripled under his watch? Will they know that?

Mr O’Brien interjected.

Mr PALLAS — It has gone from $8 billion to $25 billion. The
Treasurer is a clown; he does not even know what impact his stewardship has had
on the state of Victoria. That is the problem with this bloke: he has no idea.

Mr O’Brien interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER — Order! The Treasurer will stop
interjecting and the member for Tarneit will stop inviting interjections.

Mr PALLAS — The Treasurer ran away; he did whatever he
could to avoid the scrutiny of the people. He was offered the opportunity to
tell the people of Victoria before the next election how much they were going
to pay, how much debt they would have and how much would come out of their
schools and hospitals every year. What was the answer he gave? ‘We will tell
you in about 90 days’. The magic number of 90 days after the signing of this
contract happens to be after the next election. What a bunch of cowards. The
people of Victoria can see through this government, and they will make their
judgement accordingly.