General News
5 June, 2023
Opinion: Broke state on way to being broken
By PETER WALSH UNDER the Andrews Labor government, Victoria is basically broke. And on its way to being broken as well. In its latest failure, this government has handed down a brutal State Budget which, despite all its bloodletting, has done...
By PETER WALSH
UNDER the Andrews Labor government, Victoria is basically broke.
And on its way to being broken as well.
In its latest failure, this government has handed down a brutal State Budget which, despite all its bloodletting, has done nothing to slow our state’s soaring debt – the latest projections state that will hit $171.4 billion by 2027 and our current punitive interest payments will more than double to an eye-watering $22 million a day.
In a budget that highlights total financial incompetence, Labor will make life harder for regional Victorians with funding slashed in key areas such as roads, health, and agriculture.
Which is the last thing regional Victorians wanted to hear, with our road network already teetering on the verge of collapse after years of decay and neglect being compounded in many areas by last year’s floods and/or the incredibly protracted wet season.
Any investment of taxpayer dollars into agriculture, regional Victoria’s economic engine room, would be welcome, but Andrews Inc keeps clawing back money from staffing, research, extension, and support services, forcing farmers to turn to commercial experts for the help they should be getting from government as a small reward for the billions of dollars generated for the state’s bottom line.
On health, there is no plan in this budget to solve regional Victoria’s workforce issues. Not only will this leave more regional and rural Victorians on waiting lists, struggling to receive the urgent care and treatment many desperately need, it will also force more of them onto our increasingly dangerous roads making long trips to bigger regional hubs, or Melbourne, for treatments they could, and should, be receiving much closer to home.
In fact, Labor has cut a further $1 billion form the health system after cutting $2 billion in the previous year’s budget, despite the crisis gripping the system.
There was also no funding in this budget for the desperately needed hospital infrastructure in Mildura, or Shepparton, or Bairnsdale, or countless other regional communities that have been waiting, and waiting, for any sign Daniel Andrews and his ‘governing for all Victorians’ will include them and their communities. And the answer, as usual, would be no.
Labor is also further risking the lives of Victorian motorists by taking money from the Transport Accident Commission to try hide its mountain of debt, leaving lifesaving road safety initiatives on the cutting room floor.
Our road toll must be a number which keeps going down, but once you start dismantling the very positive programs which have helped achieve that, you are asking for trouble.
Daniel Andrews knows the trauma of road accidents, he has been through his own high-profile crash so surely he can see the need for more, not fewer, road safety campaigns.
Added to which our crumbling regional roads will also be left to disintegrate with maintenance funding slashed by 45 per cent since 2020, with a $260 million cut this year alone. These savage cuts come despite 124 deaths on Victorian roads in 2023 by the day of the budget, up a shocking 30 per cent on this time last year and follows Federal Labor’s slashing of $1.3 billion from Victoria’s roads.
The regional development budget has been halved from $211.5 million to $106.6 million in this year’s budget in a devastating slash of 80 per cent since 2020.
Funding for agriculture hasn’t escaped the axe either with a 34 per cent slash from last year’s budget, and AgVic could be set for more job cuts and service reductions with a further 4000 public service jobs set to pay the price for the Premier’s total inability to manage an economy.
The Andrews Labor Government has also signed the final death warrant for Victoria’s sustainable native timber industry, a senseless and unnecessary kowtow to the green fringe of inner-city voters whose lack of understanding on how this industry works, and has done for almost 200 years, is jeopardising the very future of entire communities in the state’s east.
Despite promising a staged transition through to 2030, Labor has brought the industry’s death day forward to 1 January 2024 in a shameless attempt to win back those voters.
Simply put, regional Victorians are being punished for the Government’s own incompetence.
Peter Walsh is the member for Murray Plains