Hansard debates

Mr MULINO (Eastern Victoria) (17:16:40) — I rise to give this speech earlier than I had expected, and it is with mixed feelings that I deliver it. I have greatly enjoyed my four years in this place and expected to give a valedictory speech much later in my career. When I gave my inaugural speech, my daughter left the chamber in tears. Given that she was five months old, her reaction was not necessarily a damning indictment of the content. She is not able to make it today due to school commitments, which is a sign of how time has flown, but knowing her tastes well I suspect that she might have the same impulse today once I started speaking, despite the intervening passage of time.

Being an MP in one of the world's longest continuous Westminster parliaments has been a great privilege. It has been both the most challenging and the most rewarding experience of my working life. Eastern Victoria Region covers a huge swathe of our state east of Melbourne's urban fringe. Harriet Shing and I have divided up this area such that she focused on the eastern part of the electorate and I focused on the outer-urban fringe around Pakenham along with the Mornington Peninsula and the area around Lilydale and Evelyn. My electorate has experienced great change over the past four years, including rapid population growth and transformational economic and social change, sometimes unexpected and jarring. I am proud that the government I have been a member of has proactively responded to all of these challenges.

As a migrant myself, I remain glass half full when it comes to population growth and am pleased that this government's response included the delivery of infrastructure at an unprecedented rate, including new schools, health services, kindergartens, roads and public transport infrastructure. My electorate office has been extremely hardworking and dedicated in dealing with these projects and in addition a very diverse set of challenging constituent issues. I have been very lucky to work with a team comprised of both the wisdom of experience and the energy and technological competence of youth. I would like to thank John, Ian, Brenda, Jacquie, Pam, Zach and Julia for their dedication. Most of this team has been on a journey together for the entirety of this term, and none of what I outlined in this speech would have been possible without them.

In addition to being a local member, I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve as Parliamentary Secretary for the Department of Treasury and Finance. Firstly, I would like to thank the Premier for providing me with the opportunity to serve in this role. Daniel Andrews has been a Premier who not only identified the key challenges facing our community but who has been willing to take bold decisions and get on with dealing with them. I have been associated with many governments as an adviser and a bureaucrat, and none has matched this government for the pace of project and policy delivery. I would also like to thank the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance, both of whom have gone out of their way to give me the scope to work on a range of interesting and worthwhile projects.

As parliamentary secretary my principal task was to support the Treasurer in developing the government's budget. Budgets reflect a government's values and priorities. I would summarise this government's budgets as being focused on social inclusion and ambitious delivery. The government's commitments to social inclusion are reflected in its investment in social infrastructure in both urban and rural settings, targeting schools, hospitals and community centres most in need. The ambition is reflected in, among other things, an annual infrastructure spend of over $10 billion, around double the average of the decade before this government came to power. In addition to being a great Treasurer, Tim Pallas has been an astute and generous mentor in my role as parliamentary secretary, and I hope that we continue to work together on projects in whatever roles I might have in the future.

I would also like to thank some people who I have worked with on specific policy projects. I have spent much of the last three years working with engineering professionals on an engineers registration scheme. Engineers remain the only profession in this country without a mandatory registration scheme. When you buy a car the person you buy the car from has to be licensed, yet the engineer who designed the car itself and the bridge or the road you drive it on does not. Electricians need to be licensed, as do plumbers, nurses, doctors, teachers and architects, but some of the people who arguably have the biggest impacts on public and worker safety do not, and I am sure I will be in the public gallery as a citizen cheering that bill on when it eventually comes to Parliament. I have worked with many people on this project. Can I single out Chris Walton, Erik Locke, Glenda Graham and Herve Carlos and also thank the team from the Department of Treasury and Finance, particularly Chris, Petrie and Anjana.

Another project several years in the making is an auction for transport services developed by the Centre for Market Design at Melbourne University and Caltech. This project could radically improve transport outcomes across the national disability insurance scheme and bus transport more generally in our outer suburbs. Victoria has been chosen as the global test site, and successful lab trials have already been conducted according to Victorian conditions. Thanks to Professor Charles Plott and Gary Stoneham for their dedication to this project over many years.

Can I also thank the many people involved in the Community Sports Infrastructure Loans Scheme. This project is really a community bond in which councils and community organisations are given access to an additional funding option on top of government grants and bank loans. This is critical given the rapidly growing demand for new and refurbished facilities as a result of population growth and increasing female participation. The demand for such an option was demonstrated last week, with a large number of applications for over $186 million in loans supporting over $400 million in projects, with many more in the wings. I would like to thank Gordon Noble, Ingo Kumic and representatives of the impact investing community and the superannuation industry who helped to design this policy.

I mentioned social procurement in a members statement this week but would like to add my thanks in this policy area to social traders, the many social enterprises that work with government in this area, the many ministers who have worked on this policy throughout this term and in particular to Shaun Leane, the government's social procurement tsar.

Finally, can I refer to the Geelong city deal, which is a unique opportunity for Geelong and the broader region to seize the potential of the emerging industries of the 21st century. The Victorian government has dedicated over $150 million to this deal, and we are close to finalising terms across all three levels of government. Can I thank Jaala Pulford, who has portfolio responsibility for the major projects falling within this project, and also Christine Couzens, Lisa Neville and John Eren, who tirelessly worked with local advocacy knowledge and support.

People from the other two layers of government with which this project is also a collaboration deserve acknowledgement. The mayor of the City of Greater Geelong, Cr Bruce Harwood, whose leadership brought a wide range of local people, interest groups and organisations onto the same page. Can I also acknowledge Sarah Henderson, who has shown great energy throughout this process. Sarah will very shortly be a political opponent in the federal tumble of debate, so this may be the last opportunity that I will have for quite a while to say anything conciliatory. Elaine Carbines; Rebecca Casson; Jane den Hollander, who has left a vast legacy during her time at Deakin University; and Kylie Warne, among many others, also worked long and hard on this project, along with the hardworking teams at the Department of Premier and Cabinet, the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources and Regional Development Victoria.

Across all of these projects my policy adviser, Simon, has been a source of advice, ideas and support. Simon brought great intellectual rigour and a generous spirit when dealing with many, sometimes tricky, stakeholders. The projects outlined above would have been nowhere near as effective without you. Thank you for a contribution above and beyond the call of duty.

Democracy feels as though it is under siege. That makes it more important than ever to laud the contribution of the people who make our Parliament what it is — the stewards of our democratic process. Working with the staff of this Parliament has been one of the highlights of the past four years for me. Many of the staff of the Parliament have had longer tenures here than the majority of MPs, and they value the traditions and importance of this institution and contribute to its functioning as much as anyone. Thanks to Greg, Chris, Peter, Patrick, Philip, Jim and Tash, and apologies to any I have forgotten; thanks to Karen and Jacquie and their team; and of course thanks to the Hansard team for correcting my errors and, almost always, keeping a straight face during my and other members' more scandalous assertions.

Thanks to the clerks and the committee staff. I have worked on a number of committees that have produced important reports, including the end-of-life choices report, the report on the lease of the port, the fire services select committee report and the Privileges Committee report. Many of these inquiries involved policy complexity and political controversy. They were also often processes undertaken to unreasonably tight deadlines. While MPs often complain about the burden of attending hearings — and I am certainly one of those — we sometimes forget that the task of making comments on a well-prepared and researched draft is far easier than generating that draft at short notice from a blank sheet of paper. Could I acknowledge — and apologies to those I do not mention — Andrew, Anne, Lilian, Richard, Patrick, Michael and Keir.

Before leaving the work of committees, I want to briefly dwell on some people beyond Parliament associated with two of the major policy debates arising from committee work that I was involved with. The debate on the lease of the port took up months of this Parliament's time. Many, many people were involved in this issue, but I want to acknowledge the work of Donna, who was as instrumental as anyone in shaping the final outcome. The voluntary assisted dying debate was another which consumed the Parliament for a considerable amount of time. It rivals any bill for both the complexity and the intensity of the debate. I worked most closely with those opposed but readily acknowledge the passion and sincerity of people on all sides of that debate, which cannot be questioned. There are too many people for me to thank, but can I mention Christine, Stephen, Brendan, Michael and John in particular for their selfless contributions over many months.

Almost finally, you will be pleased to hear, I acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues. I have worked with the crossbenchers on four budgets and a few bills in between. I think it is fair to say that the crossbench has had a greater influence on this Parliament than any other, putting issues on the agenda through committees and private members bills and having a major impact on the overall tone of this Parliament. Notwithstanding the challenge of dealing with the full gamut of legislation with limited resources, the crossbench has contributed substantially during this term. To the other major parties — the coalition and the Greens — despite the fractious nature of this Parliament at times, it has usually been enjoyable to work together on committees and legislation, other than when the opposition is filibustering!

This has been a challenging Parliament. In part this probably reflects the increasingly polarised nature of modern politics. We have dealt with some complex and challenging matters of policy, including a number of sensitive matters of conscience. I believe that the Parliament performed creditably during these times.

There have also been times when the Parliament has not been at its best. As a participant it is impossible for me to view some of the more contentious aspects of this Parliament dispassionately or with appropriate perspective. I believe that some of the events of the past four years have stretched — and on some occasions broken — practices and conventions. I do not want to dwell on that today. I am sure that, no matter what the result is of the coming election a new Parliament will have an opportunity to draw a line under some of those matters.

When it comes to my reflections on my time as a parliamentarian, my lasting impression is a positive one. As much as members of the public and even members of this place sometimes recoil at some of our worst moments, the moments where we cooperate are actually far more common. Unfortunately this aspect of Parliament goes almost entirely under the radar, far from the public's gaze. We are in an adversarial system, and I think that is a good thing. Vigorous competition between different policies leads to better outcomes. We are meant to represent the many views within our complex and heterogeneous society. I believe that an adversarial system is also the best way for Parliament to provide accountability. I do not believe, as some do, that our system is inherently flawed or broken. It would be good to somehow convey more clearly to the broader community that while our system is adversarial we do put down the cudgels and work together constructively much if not most of the time.

Finally, almost, I must give a huge thanks to my government colleagues. Harriet Shing has been the other government member for Eastern Victoria Region. The people of Eastern Victoria could not ask for a more courageous, intelligent, dedicated and passionate representative. When I casually mentioned earlier in my contribution how Harriet and I divided responsibilities for the region, I did not do justice to how much she throws herself into representing the communities of the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland — communities that have, during the past four years, undergone some of their most profound challenges for decades. Thank you for all that you do.

I shared an office with the Honourable Phil Dalidakis when I first entered Parliament. We share many policy interests and for most of this term we have shared the end of the government bench. But I do want to put on the public record that I outlasted Phil by 10 minutes in making the longest contribution of the term — 2 hours and 40 minutes to be precise, and I can see some of those opposite flinching at the memory of it. I feel some pride in having personally contributed to a change in the standing orders to impose time limits on Wednesdays.

To the whip, thank you for forgiving me when I invariably forget to prepare my adjournment matter each week.

While it is rare to acknowledge the other place, could I mention in particular Lizzie Blandthorn, James Merlino and Danny Pearson and my gratitude and debt to them. To all of my government colleagues, thank you. I have greatly enjoyed being in the trenches with you over the past four years, whether defending the government's achievements or thwarting an opposition motion. It has been a privilege to serve with people of such deep and sincere commitment.

My departure feels premature in many ways and is in no way a reflection of how I feel about my time in this place. My choice to move to a different level of government is motivated by my individual circumstances and journey. Having spent a decade in academia and many years as a bureaucrat working on macro-economic issues, the opportunity to contribute directly to this area of policy has led to a change of direction. It is not without a tinge of regret that I leave unfinished some of the projects that I described earlier.

I started this contribution by referring to Carina and will return to family to end it. If there is a downside to our chosen profession that crosses all party lines, it is the toll that public life can exact on our families. While some observe that we in the chamber are volunteers and our families are conscripts, I think it is fair to say that, regardless as to the starting point, public life invariably becomes a team effort. To Sarah and Carina, I cannot express how grateful I am for the way in which you put up with all of the unexpected events being scheduled in the diary at the last minute and with me consistently arriving home a bit later than expected. Thank you — and I look forward to the next adventure.

Thank you again to everybody in the Victorian Parliament and beyond who I have worked with. I hope and expect that my path will cross with many of yours again soon.

Honourable members applauded.