Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

GOVERNMENT: ELECTION COMMITMENTS
Wednesday, 1 June 2011 COUNCIL 1607
Mr FINN — Yes, he is a good man. At that time,
prior to the 2002 election, we had quite an issue in an
area of the eastern suburbs in relation to the Scoresby
freeway. I am sure members may possibly know where
I am going with this one. The Scoresby freeway had
been promised. It had been dangled in front of voters
for many years. With the defeat of the Kennett
government in 1999 a lot of people were concerned that
it would not happen.
Prior to the 2002 election Steve Bracks, the then
Premier, wrote to many thousands of voters throughout
the eastern suburbs of Melbourne — and Mr Leane
would be interested in this, I am sure — promising that
there would be a Scoresby freeway. Not only did he
promise there would be a Scoresby freeway but he also
promised it would be on time and on budget. He then
went on to say there would be no tolls. Prior to the 2002
election the then Premier of Victoria, Steve Bracks,
gave a promise in writing to thousands of people
throughout the eastern suburbs of Melbourne that there
would be no tolls on the Scoresby freeway.
The Scoresby freeway eventually became EastLink,
and we all know that EastLink is a tollway. It was a
huge broken promise. It has to be said that it is not quite
up there with the promise that there would be no carbon
tax under any government that Prime Minister Gillard
led. It is not quite up there, but it was certainly a good
start. In terms of Labor lies it was a good start — a
foundation on which to build bigger and more
extravagant lies in years to come. The Labor Party has
done that very successfully.
Prior to the 2006 election the then Leader of the
Opposition, Mr Baillieu, proposed a modest
desalination plant, certainly considerably more modest
than the monstrosity we have at Wonthaggi now. That
was to cover ourselves in times of drought, which is not
an unreasonable proposition given the sort and size of
the project that Mr Baillieu had proposed. What did the
Labor Party say before the 2006 election? What did
then Premier Bracks and his Deputy Premier —
whatever happened to him? where did he get to? —
say? Mr Bracks went on radio and said, ‘The whole
idea of a desal plant is a hoax’.
He was right, but he was talking about the wrong desal
plant. He was talking about Labor’s desal plant. He was
talking about the backflip Labor did after the election. It
was an impressive backflip, it has to be said — one of
Olympic standard. The Labor Party not only withdrew
its opposition to a desal plant but it went on to build
one — and it is still being built — that was somewhere
in the vicinity of three to four times bigger than the one
we had originally proposed. As a result of Labor’s
broken promise prior to the 2006 election every
Victorian will pay for that over the next 30 years. We
are looking at the state having to pay somewhere in the
vicinity of $570 million a year over the next 30 years
because Labor could not get it right.
Labor was not honest about its intentions. Perhaps it
was not aware of its intentions; that might be the
charitable way to view it. As a result of what Labor did
prior to the 2006 election in terms of not keeping its
election commitment and not maintaining its opposition
to a desal plant, we are now stuck with a monstrosity
down at Wonthaggi. We must keep in mind that it is
way behind schedule. Why is it way behind schedule?
Because it kept flooding! Only the Labor Party would
build a desalination plant on a floodplain. What
geniuses they are! They should all be wearing capes
and frolicking around universities.
Mr Jennings looks at me quizzically, but I do not know
why because he was sitting at the cabinet table when all
of this occurred, so the responsibility for that
$570 million over the next 30 years is very much on his
shoulders. He might think it is amusing, but I do not
think it is amusing — nor will my children, my
grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, who will
probably still be paying the thing off when the rest of us
are long gone.
We remember the famous night of the 1999 election
when, sadly, Steve Bracks looked like he had won. He
bounced in and looked a very cheery chap. If I had not
known better, I would have said he had perhaps had a
spot of moselle. He was a very cheery chap indeed. He
jumped to the microphone on election night and said,
‘We are going to return democracy to Victoria’. That
was the commitment he gave on election night. What
did Labor give us? It promised democracy, but what did
it give us? It gave us the Brimbank City Council.
When you hear Labor members talking about
democracy, people’s rights and people having a say and
being respected, just remember who gave us Brimbank.
Everybody who was involved — every con man and
every shyster who was involved in the Brimbank
debacle — was a member of the Australian Labor
Party. I do not want to go through the Brimbank saga in
depth; I will leave that for another time. I promise
members that will happen at another time. If members
ever see that clip of Steve Bracks bouncing around and
saying, ‘We will return democracy to Victoria’, just
remember one word: Brimbank. That will put
everything into context. It is quite extraordinary.
The bottom line is that the Labor Party had 11 years to
do so much. It did not do very much at all, and what it