Thank you, Acting Speaker. I rise to support this motion. The Opposition have promised a $40 billion cut to the state budget, including $22 billion from the public sector alone.
The Liberals and the Nationals say they can achieve that through a hiring freeze on back-office roles, without redundancies and while protecting essential services. But analysis from the Australia Institute disputes that. It estimates that delivering those savings would mean around 31,700 fewer positions by 2036–37.
That is an enormous number.
And there is a very human side to it.
In my role, I meet with public service workers across so many areas of government. And so often, somewhere in that conversation, one of them will say to me: “Actually, Kat, I’m one of your constituents.”
Public servants are a core part of the community that I represent. So when we talk in this place about tens of thousands of jobs disappearing, I know there are people in my community listening and wondering whether we’re talking about them.
Losing a job can turn a family’s life upside down. It can mean suddenly worrying about the mortgage or rent, updating a CV you never expected to need and wondering what comes next and how you are going to provide stability for the people you love.
And for someone who has spent years building a career in public service, there is more at stake than the pay cheque. There is the loss of colleagues, expertise and work that often gives them a real sense of purpose and meaning.
So when I hear 31,000 jobs discussed as an efficiency measure, I think about the people I meet every day – the person sitting across the table from me talking about women’s health, family violence, energy or education.
Those are the people behind this number.
And because I work with public servants every day, I know the value of the work they do.
There is a tendency in politics to use words like “back office” as though they mean unnecessary.
They do not.
Through my work in women’s health, I have seen public servants help turn years of advocacy by Victorian women into 20 dedicated Women’s Health Clinics in Victoria.
Women told us they were living with endometriosis and pelvic pain, debilitating periods and symptoms of menopause without getting the care they need. They told us they had spent years navigating a health system that did not always listen to them.
We made a commitment to do better.
But a commitment made in this place doesn’t magically become a clinic that a woman can walk into.
People make that happen.
Public servants worked alongside health services, clinicians and advocates to take what women told us and turn it into a model of care that could actually be delivered.
It is the same with the Early Parenting Centre we are developing in Northcote. It will be there for families at a time when getting the right support can make all the difference – whether they are just starting out with a new baby or a little further down the track.
These services start with ideas and commitments, but it takes skilled people to make them real.
And through my work across government, I see the value of that public sector expertise every day.
There are people in our departments who have spent years – sometimes decades – understanding complex policy areas, working with communities and organisations, and learning what it actually takes to turn a good idea into something that works.
Good policy does not start from scratch every time there is a new challenge. It builds on what has been tried before, what has worked, what has not, and what communities have told us along the way.
That knowledge takes years to build. Once we lose it, it is not easily replaced.
And yet, the work doesn’t disappear.
Government still needs good advice. It still needs people who know how to design and deliver services. Strip too much of that capability out and the government ends up paying private firms to provide that expertise back.
The Victorian Auditor-General has warned about the risks of consistently outsourcing work traditionally undertaken by public servants, including the risk of deskilling the Victorian Public Service.
Of course there is a role for specialist expertise.
But I would rather build expertise that stays with the Victorian people than create a government dependent on buying its own capability back.
And this is where I come back to the sheer scale of what is being proposed. Because once you have cut as deeply as One Nation-Liberal Coalitions will, what comes next?
Where does the rest of the money come from? Do you start closing hospitals? Do you close TAFE campuses? Do you cut nurses and other frontline workers? Do you start winding back the nurse-to-patient ratios we have fought so hard to strengthen?
These are not small savings that can be found down the back of the couch.
If you are promising savings on this scale, Victorians deserve to know what you are prepared to give up to find them.
Because we are not starting from a place where our communities are asking for less. There’s genuine need out there. In my community, we are expanding the Austin Hospital emergency department so it can care for thousands more patients. We have opened a Mental Health and Wellbeing Local in Darebin because people need support closer to home. We have strengthened nurse-to-patient ratios because nurses fought for safer workloads and patients deserve safe care. And we have spent years strengthening our response to family violence because when a woman reaches out for help, the answer cannot be that there is nobody there to support her.
And we know these questions are not theoretical, because we have seen what happens when governments pursue cuts. When the Liberals were last in office, more than $1 billion was cut from health. TAFE funding was slashed, campuses closed, thousands of staff positions lost. So when I hear promises of billions more in savings today, I want to know where they end. Because, Acting Speaker, after you have hollowed out the public service, there are still billions of dollars left to find. And then the question becomes much more confronting: what service does a Victorian lose so that the numbers add up?
History matters when Victorians are being asked to accept that savings on this scale can be delivered without consequences.
But ultimately this is about more than the public service itself.
It is about what we want government to be able to do for our community.
This is why I am particularly concerned about women’s health.
Our Women’s Health Clinics exist because women told us the old system was not good enough. They provide dedicated care for endometriosis, pelvic pain, heavy periods and menopause, as well as sexual and reproductive healthcare, including abortion care.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health, I’ve seen what it’s meant for women and girls to finally have access to healthcare that affirms their choices and treated them with dignity and respect.
And how devastating it is when they’re dismissed and disempowered.
It’s why I’ve spent the last few years focused on expanding women’s rights and access to healthcare. We have delivered the biggest expansion on dedicated women’s health services in our state’s history.
And this brings me to something that chills me to the bone. One Nation’s national policy explicitly seeks opportunities to roll back abortion laws.
The Leader of the Opposition has said Victoria’s abortion laws would not change under a Liberal-Nationals government.
But it may not be a Liberal-National government, and protecting the law and protecting access are not the same thing.
A legal right is only meaningful if the healthcare is there when a woman needs it.
At best, the One Nation-Liberal coalition would simply close our women’s health clinics and sexual and reproductive health hubs, and that would have a devastating impact on women’s access to this critical healthcare.
That is why funding matters. Services matter. Having people there to deliver that care matters. And having a Labor government matters.
Labor has spent these precious years finally giving women’s health the attention it deserves. A One Nation-Liberal Coalition will spend the next four undoing everything we’ve fought for and taking women’s rights backwards.
And this is no joke. We have seen this happen across the world with the rise of the far-right.
And the same is true when it comes to climate action.
Victoria is transforming our energy system because we know we need to act on climate change and build a cleaner, more sustainable future. We are on track to reach net zero by 2045. We are investing in renewable energy at scale, making homes more energy efficient and reducing household bills.
In less than a decade, we are set to power our state on 95% renewables. One Nation have said they will burn up our net zero target while they burn more coal. They will restart the climate wars.
This should horror any progressive and environmental voter and make them seriously consider what is at stake this election.
One Nation-Liberal cuts will be with us for generations.
And in my final moments I’d like to echo the disgust of other Labor members who’ve spoken today about what the cuts mean for the progress made for First Peoples’ rights and self-determination.
The Liberals and Nationals have committed to repeal Victoria’s Treaty in their first 100 days of Government – invariably, this will lead to the cuts and closure of vital Aboriginal community Controlled services, undermining First People’s access to self-determination and culturally safe care.
In the inner north, we’re immensely proud of our history of Aboriginal rights activism and the strong network of First Nations organisations and services that work every day to give support, hope, aspiration and opportunity to First Nations people, and that’s why I support this motion.
