Mr  PALLAS  (Tarneit) — Hubris is no substitute for honest hard work,
and Victorians do not need a magazine to tell them what they already know —
that Victoria is a great place to live. It is a great place that could be so
much better if members of this government confronted the challenges that exist
in our state rather than simply high-fiving themselves every time a passing
comment for earnt past effort, rather than for the efforts of this government,
comes our way.

In fact there are three world’s most livable cities surveys
produced annually. They are the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Global
Liveability Ranking and Report, under which Melbourne is ranked no 1; the
Monocle Quality of Life Survey 2014, where Melbourne is ranked no.

3; and the Mercer Quality of Living Survey which inexplicably does
not rank Melbourne in its top 10. Melbourne is the most livable city in the
world. We all know that, but that is in spite of this government, not because
of it. It is not surprising that the Napthine government would seize on this
good news, and it is unsurprising in many ways as Melbourne has consistently
been rated highly by these measures. Amusingly the New York Times dismisses the
EIU index, commenting that ‘The Economist clearly equates livability with speaking
English’. Of course it does not know our Premier, and it does not know of the
contribution he has made in this place and this particular self-congratulatory
matter of public importance.

On 9 June 2009, when once again Melbourne topped the table of
Asia-Pacific cities and at a time when our economy was the job-creating capital
economy of our nation, the then Premier warned that ‘We are also very conscious
of the need in the current environment to fast-track investment, to fast-track
jobs’.

Even though we were receiving plaudits — and it is not the first
time we have been judged the world’s most livable city — and were receiving
accolades under these measures, we realised that job creation is ultimately the
test of good government. That is the measure under which Victorians will hold
this government to account. In reality, the Economist measure is a list of
cities that are pleasant to visit and do business in. This ranking should be a
source of great pride to us all but its limitations as a measure of political
achievement are momentous. Take, for example, the fact that the EIU — —

  Mr Newton-Brown — On a point of order, Speaker, the member appears to be reading from a document. I ask that he table that document.

  The SPEAKER — Order! Is the member for Tarneit reading from a document?

  Mr PALLAS — I am referring to my notes.

  The SPEAKER — Order! The member for Tarneit, to continue.

  Mr PALLAS — In reality the great shortfall of the Economist measure is that it excludes one of the most important measures — the cost of living. One of the greatest impacts on
the cost of living is whether Victorians have a job. We are living in a time
when Victoria has Kennettesque levels of unemployment and when the Age recently
reported that ‘The last Premier to face an election with an unemployment rate
of 7 per cent was turfed out of office’.

It is not just that our unemployment rate has risen from 4.9 per
cent to 7 per cent in four long lost years of self-congratulation and inertia;
it is more that this government does not get that its primary responsibility is
not to promote itself but to promote the welfare of this state and the
wellbeing and best interests of Victorians. This is a government that is not on
Victoria’s side. It is a government that sits around high-fiving itself on any
passing accolade without even a passing concern for the impact of the jobs
crisis confronting this state.

Three months ago, when the budget was handed down, this government
and this Treasurer predicted a 6.25 per cent stable employment rate for this
state. It is our jobs-to-population growth rate that is leaving so many
Victorians behind.

This underlies the basic problem this matter of public importance
(MPI) fails to confront, which is that members of this government are more
concerned with self-promotion — indeed self-preservation — than they are with
fighting for Victorians. Under the Napthine government, Victorians are on their
own because members of this government are too distracted and dysfunctional to
do anything more than look after themselves. This is a government that
celebrates the fact that as our population grows, yes, net jobs in the economy
increase. However, through its prolonged lack of effort it has basically turned
its back on Victorians. It has kept this jobs growth to an absolute minimum.
Seventy-eight thousand new jobs is the boast.

That is 78 000 new jobs over four years in a population heading
towards 6 million people. This is not particularly impressive; in fact, it is
profoundly unimpressive.

Over the coalition’s time in government only one-quarter of
population growth has been matched by jobs growth, with another quarter matched
by unemployment growth. The government has reached an average annual jobs
growth rate of less than 1 per cent. During Labor’s last term in office the
rate of annual average jobs growth was 2.5 per cent. So when government members
get up and talk about the absolute minimum increase in jobs that have been
added to the economy, that belies the fact that they have turned their backs on
Victorians who are struggling to find work as the labour market grows.

In today’s Geelong Advertiser the Treasurer is quoted as saying:

These figures demonstrate that the Victorian coalition government
is supporting jobs growth and investment in regional Victoria.

That must come as a great comfort to the people of Geelong!

It is a laughable comment to make when the unemployment rate in
Geelong has hit a 15-year high of 10.5 percent and nearly one in five young
Geelong residents are unemployed. The government has created a measly 4400 jobs
in the region over its entire time in office. The overall figures for regional
Victoria show that there are more than 12 000 extra unemployed regional
Victorians. That is no record to crow about. If we want to talk about
livability, we have to talk about employability and the fact that Victorians in
their droves are being left behind as our population grows. This government
thinks it is a source of great comfort to talk about absolute job numbers. That
is an absolute disgrace. Unemployment in the regions in general has jumped to
6.9 per cent. It tells us everything that in the first sitting week after this
disastrous news for regional Victoria, this government’s top priority is to
celebrate the fact that one glossy magazine decided to place Melbourne at the
top of its list of favourite cities.

I am comforted by the fact that this government has its priorities
right.

I am not — I am being sarcastic. This is a clear sign of the
government’s distorted priorities. Liberal Party members have clearly never
dismissed the toenails-of-the-state philosophy of Jeff Kennett. Clearly their
minds are focused elsewhere. The Treasurer should probably stick to trawling
Twitter for typographical errors rather than pretending he is even remotely
focused on or concerned with the wellbeing of ordinary Victorians and making
life better for them. This is not student politics. This is not the Young
Liberals debating society. This is about an economy that needs a government
focused on Victorians, not on itself. It is not about self-satisfied sniggering
from those opposite about how clever their line was; it is about whether or not
what they are doing is making lives better and making the future brighter for
Victorians. It is not about government members deluding themselves by saying
they are doing really well over and over again without actually making it true.
They can say it as  many times as they
want; it will not change the lived experience of Victorians.

Government members can say we have had absolute jobs growth and
congratulate themselves when they see the absolute droves of Victorians being
left behind, but they are not fooling Victorians, who live the experience of
this government’s sloth and inertia every day. This government is utterly
delusional. If members opposite think they can cut $1.2 billion out of TAFE,
watch campuses shut down and youth unemployment skyrocket and claim to be
supporting jobs, then essentially they are turning their backs on Victorians.
Worse than that, they have demonstrated how unconcerned they are about the
wellbeing of Victorians.

Let us look at infrastructure, for example. If members of the
Napthine government want to concern themselves with Melbourne’s livability,
they should stop gloating and start thinking about the city’s livability into
the future.

This government is happy to congratulate itself for the courage
and forethought of governments past while taking a wrecking ball to the city’s
future. In the Parliament these people purport to care about Melbourne’s
livability because it gets them through a debate when they have no achievements
of their own to spruik. But even as we speak what we are seeing is the same
government members determined to inflict ‘a 100-year catastrophe’, in the words
of the Lord Mayor of Melbourne. The Premier has abandoned the Melbourne Metro
rail tunnel, an idea that had been carefully developed and refined over the
better part of the last decade, with tens of millions of dollars invested in
the thinking and planning involved in it, to secure our city’s livability into
the future. He threw out a decade of planning to build the Melbourne rail link.
Nobody — —

  Mr Newton-Brown — On a point of order, Speaker, the member appears to be reading from a document. I again seek that he table that document.

  The SPEAKER — Order! Is the member for Tarneit reading from a document?

  Mr PALLAS — It is my notes.

  The SPEAKER — Order! You are referring to your notes?

  Mr PALLAS — Yes. Even as
we speak, what we are seeing is a government that has thrown out the planning
and turned its back on Victorians, who expect considered and well-structured
governance. Nobody had heard anything about the Melbourne rail link until it
appeared as a thought bubble in a budget in which tens of billions of dollars
in infrastructure projects over decades were concocted but not justified,
because this is a government that cannot take Victorians into its confidence.
At that time Melbourne Metro was considered to be the highest priority after
the east-west link. That is in the government’s own thinking.

In Christmas of 2012 its second-highest priority was the Melbourne
Metro tunnel. Of course that all changed within a matter of months, and the
government’s new highest priority is the Melbourne rail link. Can members
imagine a worse way to go about infrastructure planning and delivery? In a
matter of months, in secret, a well-planned, visionary proposal has disappeared
and has been replaced by the Melbourne rail link — a project supported only by
an interim business case and the government’s assurance that it is in fact
visionary.

The vision is myopic and it is dangerous for this state. It is
worrying that the single most expensive project in the budget seems to have
been dreamt up over a matter of months in the Premier’s office. It is even more
worrying that the government could not coherently explain to Victorians what it
is and what its performance is likely to be. Understandably Victorians are
anxious about the government’s infrastructure planning. They want detail and
they want a debate about the merit of the proposals.

They want the government to be transparent with them around the
business case and the planning that has gone into it.

Our city’s livability today did not happen by accident. It has
been built up generation after generation through the consistent and careful
effort of governments past. Melbourne is a successful city today because it has
not been planned on the back of a napkin. The plans we have been sold are
basically taxpayer-funded ads, which bluster about how great the government is.
They are the sorts of things that this government in opposition was almost
hyperventilating about, but hypocrisy is something the government is more than
happy to celebrate. In fact it is almost prepared to turn its back on the
achievements of our community.

This government is on a sea of self-delusion and praise.