Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

BUDGET PAPERS 2011–12
Tuesday, 31 May 2011 COUNCIL 1585
for his final walk around his neighbourhood to say
goodbye to the area in which he had lived for such a
long time. It was 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and
he was battered to death — by a woman, as it turns out.
Do members know why? Because the Ashburton police
station was unattended. What has happened is that we
have listened. That old man died in a suburban street in
the afternoon on a Friday. That epitomises what had
become the police and law and order situation under the
former government.
I was pleased to note that $500 000 has been put aside
in the budget for the refurbishment of the Ashburton
police station, and we will have police out there. We
will have police in the suburbs rather than taking the
matter for granted. We will not be closing or
amalgamating the police stations but actually putting
people where they need to be.
We are also going to be putting in $200 000 for traffic
lights at the intersection of Through Road and
Riversdale Road and $300 000 for a new pavilion at the
Bennettswood Reserve. The total funding is
$3.4 million, and the majority of this money is coming
from the government. Sadly, we get only 15 minutes to
speak in this chamber, and I have another 4 1 ⁄2 minutes
to go. I can remember the olden times when we did not
have limits on our speeches, and I have to say there was
a lot of merit in that.
I would like to spend the 4 minutes left to me speaking
about what happened with the Department of Human
Services. I would like to give a snapshot of what the
Minister for Mental Health, Mary Wooldridge, who is
also Minister for Women’s Affairs and Minister for
Community Services, has achieved out of this budget,
because it has ramifications right across our state. It is a
great pity that Mr Tee and Ms Tierney felt so wilted
after their contributions that they could not even stay in
the chamber; they had to go. There are only two people
from the Labor Party in the chamber: Mr Elasmar and
Mr Leane. Labor members obviously cannot cope with
the heat in the kitchen, so they have had to flee.
In the short time left to me I would like to read some of
the statistics. I will remind members of this chamber of
our huge input into mental health so they can
understand the ramifications for mental health in this
state and see the huge commitment that the Baillieu
government has given. Our commitment is up 6.3 per
cent, from $1.0078 billion to $1.0711 billion. Drug
services are up by 5.6 per cent, disability services are
up by 5.5 per cent and child protection and family
services are up by 7.6 per cent.
There is a particularly difficult challenge in child
protection. Ms Wooldridge recognised what was going
to happen across our state with child protection
workers. We needed to have a huge injection of funds
into this area, and that is exactly what she got. She also
recognised that one group that needs significant
assistance with financial and other support is the
children who are leaving foster care and going into the
community. A great deal of money has been directed
towards those programs. The youth services and youth
justice area is up by 10.7 per cent, concessions are up
by29.6 per cent and funding for communities is up by
4.8 per cent. There have been huge increases in areas
that affect people’s lives.
I turn back to the 522 people in Bentleigh I mentioned
earlier. Many of those people will be affected by these
initiatives. The concessions are going to be an
important aspect for them. Law and order is an
important aspect. Let me remind the chamber about
mental health: one in five people in this state are
affected by a mental health issue. It is probably going to
affect all of us in this chamber over the next decade in
some way. It is going to affect our families and it is
going to affect the community, and it is imperative that
we understand and address these vital issues.
I have had a look at a whole range of initiatives that
affect Southern Metropolitan Region. I was pleased to
see one of the initiatives is for mental health among gay
and lesbian and transsexual, bisexual and intersex
people. The initiative is aimed at looking at how we
deal with discrimination so that we can address the
unacceptable level of suicide, particularly among
younger men in rural areas who are gay. This is the
path we have gone down to understand what the
community expects. What we have done with this
budget is exactly what we promised.
We have pages listing what this government has
already done in the short time it has been in office.
Unlike the Bracks government, in our first six months
we have been absolutely vigilant in making certain that
we have carried through on the election promises we
made. Some of them are on the pages I have in front of
me. Sadly, in the 22 seconds I have left I will not be
able to read all of them. However, the Baillieu
government is to be commended. This is how we intend
to go on: listening to the people, providing for the
people and servicing the people of this great state of
Victoria.
Hon. W. A. Lovell — On a point of order, Acting
President, I draw your attention to the Labor Party
benches, with Mr Leane on his own. It resembles a
Labor party state conference.