Mr PALLAS (Werribee) (11:33:01): I rise to update the house about the great news of the Andrews Labor government continuing to cut regional payroll tax and to provide work opportunities for regional Victorians. Last Monday’s budget delivered yet another cut to our regional payroll tax. This rate will be reduced by 50 per cent to a record low of around about 1.2 per cent, the lowest in Australia. This is the fourth budget cut in a row that delivers payroll tax relief for Victorian businesses. Regional businesses in Geelong will save a projected $30.5 million in 2019–20 because of this reduction in payroll tax. Let us not forget that the Leader of the Opposition described these reductions in payroll tax as ‘tiny snips’. Tell that to the businesses in the Ballarat region who will save $20.4 million. Tell that to the Latrobe-Gippsland businesses that will save $27.8 million. The member for Ripon has called these tax changes ‘too little, too late’. Well, we have delivered over $1 billion in cuts to business taxes since the Andrews government was elected. That is more than four times the level of cuts to business that those opposite delivered in their time in office. There is this longstanding fallacy that the opposition are in some way the friends of business. They certainly did not demonstrate it through the way that they governed. Make no mistake: this government has delivered for our regions, and you can see the results. The latest unemployment rate in regional Victoria is 4.2 per cent, the lowest unemployment rate since records were kept and the lowest unemployment rate for regional areas in the nation. Now, a tax cut is no doubt a foreign concept to those opposite. When they think of a cut they think of school funding cuts and hospital funding cuts— (Time expired)