Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

ADJOURNMENT
1594 COUNCIL Tuesday, 31 May 2011
greater disclosure on these sites. He seeks an action
from the minister to convene a meeting of those
organisations to ensure better disclosure standards. I
will pass that on to the Minister for Consumer Affairs
and Minister for Energy and Resources.
Ms Darveniza raised a matter for the Minister for
Public Transport, Mr Mulder, about improved rail
services to Shepparton. She makes the point that she
thinks there are insufficient services. I am not the
minister, so I will not pass judgement on that. She
wants greater speed and frequency of service and notes
that there are a number of groups advocating for this. I
will certainly pass the matter on to the minister, but I do
note that during the 11 long, dark years of Labor
government Ms Darveniza never advocated for these
services. In that long, dark period she was deeply silent
on matters of rail transport to Shepparton and was in
any event unsuccessful in achieving the outcomes that
she now seeks. I find there to be an incongruity in her
now seeking this from a new government, given that
she failed to seek it from a government in which she
was a parliamentary secretary.
Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and
Early Childhood Development) — Ms Mikakos raised
the issue of funding for children’s centres, particularly
the Lyndarum children’s centre at the Lyndarum
community centre in Whittlesea. I welcome
Ms Mikakos raising the issue of funding for early
childhood facilities in this state. I welcome it every time
she raises it, because it gives me the opportunity to talk
about the coalition’s record commitment of $26 million
in this funding round for children’s facilities that we
will be opening in the coming financial year. The
Lyndarum community centre will be welcome to make
an application for funding for that centre during that
funding round.
I note that Ms Mikakos has now resorted to raising an
issue that her leader raised a couple of weeks ago.
There is no doubt that Ms Mikakos and the Leader of
the Opposition in other place, Mr Andrews, are out on
their road trip of missed opportunities, visiting every
children’s centre that they chose not to fund in the past
11 years. They are now raising these issues and
expecting the new government to pick up the funding
for them. We have $26 million to spend on early
childhood facilities this year. That funding round will
go a long way towards helping many communities
build new facilities, extend facilities and improve the
facilities that Labor ignored over the past 11 years.
The PRESIDENT — Order! The house now stands
adjourned.
House adjourned 10.36 p.m.