Mr PALLAS (Tarneit) — I have a great deal of trepidation in speaking in support of this matter of public importance, largely because Victorians are bearing the brunt of this government’s failure to manage.

Victorians are struggling under the weight of a government that burdens them with the politics of austerity and negativity. This government never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Every forgone effort and timidity of action translates into lost jobs and lost opportunities. This state is encumbered by an underwhelming, underachieving, job-destroying government, which sits at the centre of our state’s economic malaise. In recent weeks we have seen major companies that are staples of their local economies pull their investment from Victoria resulting in the loss of very many jobs. A hundred have gone from Holden and some 450 are threatened if the Shell oil refinery cannot be sold. The list goes on. Ford is looking shaky. We have job losses at the Target distribution centre, the Telstra Sensis call centre, BlueScope Steel, Amcor and Boral, not to mention the cuts to the public sector. All of these are direct hits that have an immediate impact on communities.

None other than the former executive of Ford, current chairman of BHP Billiton, Jac Nasser, predicted that the automotive manufacturing industry was on its way out just a few days after Holden’s announcement. The regions to the west of Melbourne and Geelong have been taking the hits. Pockets of high unemployment are developing right across our state. The most recent federal government small area employment reports for Corio show that it already has an unemployment rate of 9.9 per cent. There are other areas in the west of Melbourne — in Sunshine, Melton, Maribyrnong and Werribee — where areas have up to 9 per cent or 10 per cent unemployment.

In Greater Dandenong the unemployment rate is 12.7 per cent. In Victoria there are 27 700 more unemployed persons and the participation rate has fallen to 64.8 per cent from 65.7 per cent in December 2010. In country Victoria today there are nearly 30 000 fewer full-time jobs than there were in December 2010. In the last two years of the Victorian Labor government, by contrast, 153 300 jobs were created — an average of 6380 per month, more than four times the rate that has been achieved under this government. And all this occurred during a period that included the onset and the deepest impacts of the global financial crisis and one of the longest droughts in Victoria’s history.

There was a time when you would have been forgiven for thinking that youth unemployment was something that this government actually cared about. In the 2011 families statement the former Premier lamented that the numbers were not all that positive — youth unemployment was around 12.5 per cent.

Two years and $300 million in cuts to TAFE later, youth unemployment in Victoria is one of the worst in the nation. The average youth unemployment rate in Victoria over the period of the coalition government has been 18.3 per cent, the highest average in the country, well above the national average of 16.6 per cent. Victoria also currently has the lowest youth participation rate, apart from the Northern Territory (NT). In other words it has the second highest youth unemployment rate of any mainland state and the lowest youth employment to population ratio of any state, at 42.9 per cent — the second lowest in the country after the NT.

When vision, purpose and action should combine to inspire and invigorate, instead we see blame shifting elevated to the status of an art form. Instead of plans we have talk of plans and newspaper advertisements asking members of the public to share their plans so that the government can develop its own.

With all this indecision, equivocation and inertia Victoria has slowly ground to a standstill. There is no doubt that our economy is slowing down. In the 2010-11 financial year the Victorian economy grew 12.5 per cent faster than the Australian economy. In the 2011-12 financial year, the first full year under a coalition government, the Victorian economy grew 32 per cent more slowly than the Australian economy.

Victoria was once the jobs engine of the nation, but now that engine has seized. The job creation rate is faltering — a mere 41 000 new jobs after nearly two and a half years in government compared to the last two years of Labor, which saw an extra 150 000-plus jobs created, and even compared to New South Wales, which has seen more than 100 000 jobs created. Over this government’s term the population of New South Wales has increased by almost the same number as Victoria’s — about 175 000 — but that state has created nearly twice the number of jobs.The Victorian population is growing 2.5 times faster than jobs are growing in this state.

To quote an article that appeared in the Age newspaper recently:
The economy in Victoria is shuddering. Unemployment is worryingly high and, by many measures, the state is in recession. Yet by themselves, these descriptors have a remoteness about them, the cool, clinical language of economics that gives no hint of the human consequences.

Victorians have been fitted up with a government that not only does not know what it is doing but is leaving a mountain of damage that a future Labor government will have to clean up.

Let us look at this government’s record. It is not pretty.

The coalition’s cut to expenditure to make room for infrastructure spending has yet to materialise, but it has contributed to unemployment. Four thousand public servants have lost their jobs, and some of the most important programs and government activities necessary to grow the whole state have ended. Much-needed TAFEs in rural and regional Victoria are having to close courses and sack staff because of unnecessary budget cuts. As is increasingly clear, over the last two years the state has gone backwards on almost every financial measure. The budget has gone backwards, the economy has gone backwards, inequalities are on the rise and communities are being splintered. This is a government that fails the test of good financial management on every measure because a true measure of any government is the wellbeing of the community it is elected to serve.

Those opposite do not even have a plan. Even if there were a plan, members will not find a cabinet that knows how to execute it, depending on who is in that cabinet at any given time.

This is a big-talking, slow-spending, low-octane government that is spluttering and stumbling along. The government’s lethargy is turning away investment across the state of Victoria. It is hurting jobs, growth and confidence. The evidence is everywhere. I will give one example. Westpac released its report entitled Coast-to-Coast in March, and it does not mess around in its assessment of this government. It says Victoria’s economy has:

… weakness across multiple fronts and a pronounced drag from the public sector.

It goes on to say:

The public sector has been the main swing factor in Vic’s underperformance.

The report identifies a 10 per cent contraction in demand in the year 2012. That is the biggest six-month contraction since the recession two decades ago. It is evidence of fewer people buying fewer goods and services and putting less money back into the Victorian economy. The report also identified an astonishing collapse in public investment. That figure fell by between 60 and 70 per cent in 2012. That is evidence of the government investing less money in Victoria on fewer major projects and creating fewer jobs. The figures do not lie. We are hearing over and over again that this government’s lack of infrastructure projects — real ones — and the building of tangible things is hitting the state hard.

There are major building companies in this state that cannot make the investment in jobs and skills that they would otherwise make because there is no pipeline to work with, nothing to base bids or estimates on and nothing to keep skilled staff working on. Make no mistake: these companies are now saying that the government has turned the pipeline off. It will take years to re-employ and to rebuild the skills we have seen this government forcibly export interstate and internationally. But it does not have to be this way. Even under a coalition government, New South Wales state and local government infrastructure investment fell by only 1 per cent last year. In Victoria, however, the cuts went to the bone, and infrastructure investment fell by 36 per cent. No wonder we are falling behind.

A comparison of Victoria’s economic performance with that of New South Wales shows that New South Wales is doing better at growing its economy and jobs.

Since December 2010 New South Wales has created 74 300 jobs, or 2650 jobs per month. More than 51 000 of those were full time. Our nearest regular measure of state growth, state final demand, shows that in the final quarter of 2012 the Victorian economy shrank by 0.7 per cent while the New South Wales economy grew by 0.4 per cent. For the year to 2012 Victoria’s state final demand shrank by 0.3 per cent while the New South Wales figure grew by 2.7 per cent, all on trend.

In the former Treasurer’s defence — he was nothing if not inconsistent — 18 months before the last election, in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia on 29 April 2009, he said that:

… the state government had a responsibility to encourage and facilitate new investment and support business to maintain and grow employment. To reiterate, jobs must be the highest priority.
…
…the state government’s performance will be assessed on how it deals with the growing jobs crisis.

There was no jobs crisis — that is, not until these feckless phoneys opposite occupied the Treasury benches. That is no coincidence; that is incompetence. We on this side do not talk down the economy; we watch in despair as the policies of those on the other side of the chamber drain this state.

What happened when the jobs junkie — the aspiring Treasurer — landed the glittering prize of government?

He offloaded any semblance whatsoever of his concern about jobs, jobs, jobs, and settled into a blissful slumber of austerity and inertia. This Napthine government is a bad administration without a clue and in search of a purpose. After the Baillieu-Wells purge Liberal prognosticators said the government’s problem is its inability to sell its message. That is just spin; there is nothing to sell. The basic problem for this government is that it lacks substance. Jobs are created in the Victorian economy when dirt is shifted and work is under way. In effect the jobs crisis and economic malaise that has descended upon this state is a direct consequence of this government’s ergophobia — that is, its irrational fear of work.

This is a government that thinks counter-cyclical investment strategies involve going around in circles backwards. Few governments could match this government’s skill in giving the impression of moving without actually getting anywhere or having any idea where it is supposed to be going.

This government has decided that major projects will be nothing more than castles in the air because the real things are too hard. It ducks the question of who will ultimately pay by setting long-term goals but narrowing the terms of the debate to the current budget cycle. No amount of overcompensating talk about bigger and bigger projects that are not happening will make up for the lack of real action.

The new Treasurer approved of the austerity budget. He described it as:

… an excellent budget from a coalition government which has found itself in very challenging financial times.

He then proceeded to blame a variety of factors, including GST revenue to Victoria and some of the effects of the global financial crisis. But what happened to the member for Malvern, who came to this place bright eyed, bushy tailed and fired up by a sense of purpose and destiny? On 19 December 2006, in this place, he said:

… if we wish for Victoria to continue as a sovereign state, we must act like one. That means no more finger pointing and no more blame shifting.

I will tell you what happened to him: the federal government changed, and he found himself in government without a clue what to do. You guessed it — he has done nothing but blame shift since he has been in government.

Victorians have every right to feel let down by this government. It has been 1770 days since we were promised an integrated transport plan, and still we have nothing in respect of this plan. This government has ground this state to a standstill, and we need a change for the better.

See Tim’s speech in Hansard here.