This week in State Parliament – 12 November 2015
This week in State Parliament, the Andrews government forced seven Bills through the lower house despite sittings shortened for Remembrance Day. The result was many MPs were unable to speak on controversial Bills such as ending commercial net fishing in Port Phillip Bay and access zones around abortion clinics.
Liberal and National MPs grilled the Premier and Treasurer over revelations Labor had incurred more than $200 million of previously undisclosed costs for scrapping the East West Link project, despite having told Victorians that the costs had been capped.
We also called on the Premier to remove Cesar Melhem from the Labor Party after criminal charges against him were proposed by counsel assisting the Trade Unions Royal Commission and it was revealed he has hired a co-accused former AWU official as one of his electorate officers.
We questioned why the government is only implementing 6 of 13 recommendations of a review of counter-terrorism laws, a review completed more than 12 months ago for which the Napthine government had accepted 12 of the 13 recommendations.
We supported legislation to require a range of organisations that work with children to meet child safe standards to protect against child sexual abuse, in line with the Napthine government’s response to the Betrayal of Trust report.
We also highlighted that the government’s legislation for council rate caps fails to meet the government’s election promise to cap council rate increases at the level of the CPI.