Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is nothing wrong with Australia that a good government can't fix, and the same goes for the once great state of Victoria. For 23 of the last 27 years the Labor Party has been in power, and Victorians have heard enough. This independent report, Rotting from the top, goes to the heart of everything that is wrong with the state of Victoria. What's inside this independent report is a catalogue of corruption and criminality. If the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, had an ounce of decency, she would take responsibility for the failures of the government and resign immediately. Ms Allan was the minister at the epicentre of the Big Build projects when independent anticorruption investigations uncovered $15 billion worth of rip-offs and rorts. Many of these projects involve funding from the state and federal governments, and in all cases the taxpayers have been failed by the Victorian government.

You have to ask yourself: why does it matter? It matters because, apart from the detailed allegations of criminality and complete contempt for the rule of law, every dollar wasted on bikies, wasted on union thugs, is less money going to the things that matter most in Victoria. That $15 billion could have built new hospitals. It could have built new schools. It could have improved our public housing. Or we could have just fixed the bloody roads. The taxpayer money paid to these union thugs and their organised crime mates could have been used to recruit more police, to recruit more nurses, to recruit more teachers in our state.

When it comes to schools in need of urgent funding, you don't need to look any further than my old public school of Sale College. If the state government wasn't wasting $15 billion on CFMEU corruption, we would have had a new school in Sale years ago. Alongside my colleague and the member for Gippsland South Danny O'Brien, we've been trying to get the state government to prioritise the construction of a new campus. All we've had, year upon year upon year, are more excuses from the state government.

Currently Sale College is split across two campuses—the junior campus in Guthridge Parade and the senior campus in York Street. That model is not meeting the needs of students, and it's not meeting the needs of teachers or the support staff. The junior campus in particular is literally falling apart. I've seen video footage in the last couple of days where, on a rainy day, water is just streaming through the ceiling into the classrooms. It's a 50-year-old school. It's beyond its useful life and there is no point attempting to refurbish these facilities when an entirely new school is required.

There has been structural damage to some of the rooms. Some rooms can't even be used at the moment. There are safety risks associated with mould and asbestos building materials, and you can't repair those sorts of things with a few coats of paint and a maintenance program. Over the years I've met with concerned parents and teachers, and they are disgusted with the facilities that students are being forced to endure. How do we really expect students, who may come from struggling backgrounds in some cases, to value their education when the state Labor government gives them a second-rate learning facility like this?

Across my electorate, from Morwell to Mallacoota, this is the No. 1 public school infrastructure project because of these enduring poor conditions. As a former student of the school, I don't believe a split junior and senior campus is desirable, and establishing a brand-new school on one site would deliver significant long-term cost savings and benefits in terms of educational outcomes for the students themselves. Moving the school would also provide opportunities for the township of Sale to re-use some significant parcels of land, both in York Street and in Guthridge Parade, for housing and other activities.

While the federal government does give money directly to the states for education, it's up to the state minister to decide the spending priorities in the budget, and we need to get Sale College to the top of the list. But while the money is being rorted, we are continuing to miss out. So I am pleased to see that the leader of the Liberals in Victoria, Jess Wilson, and the Nationals leader, Danny O'Brien, are offering a fresh start and real solutions. A Liberal and Nationals government in Victoria would stop the rorts and waste by establishing a royal commission into CFMEU misconduct and a new industry watchdog, Construction Enforcement Victoria. We need to end the rorts, waste and corruption to get Victoria heading in the right direction.