Every day, Victorians who rely on borrowed cash to live in their house, run their business, drive their car or live day-to-day are uneasy. Interest rates are now at their highest point since 2018 — and the rate at which they have increased has left heads spinning and wallets sagging.
While the interest rates on your home hurt your hip pocket, there’s a broader problem — the $15 million a day of state debt.
Labour has imposed 53 new taxes on Victorians since it came to power. Now, the state’s debt burden has grown again; you can guarantee the government will find another way to impose a new tax on you.
So it’s a painful story. So many Victorians are doing it tough. But how is the Labor Government reacting?
This, remember, is an institution that is meant to help people. You’ve heard the motto “For the people, by the people”, right? Yes, the government is there to represent us!
But what we have is a government out of touch with the struggling Victorian.
Families and businesses who are beginning to drown under the growing cloud of debt and cost of living are being left to fend for themselves. It should be the season of cheer with Christmas just around the corner, but there is genuine despair in the community.
The government is hell-bent on continuing with its priority projects — and not giving any attention, not just to our priorities, but to our necessities.
When we need help keeping our heads above water, there are more than $30 billion worth of cost overruns on Labor’s major projects.
We saw it recently in parliament with what we dub Dump Day. All the government departments and agencies make their annual reports public in one big pile. Nothing could hide the numbers inside — a sea of debt and deficit.
But still, the government pushes on with its priority or so-called legacy projects that are super-expensive and do not help everyday Victorians.
While you are still swallowing the bitter pill of $30 billion of wastage, let me hit you with some other facts.
The roads are being starved of investment. As a regional MP, I am used to banging the drum over Victoria’s poor roads, but this problem now impacts metropolitan Victorians just as much.
Disturbingly, the roads annual report has the government falling 25 per cent short of its own target.
Instead of the government providing basic services, it pushes on with the Suburban Rail Loop, which is estimated to cost $125 billion for stage one. Imagine what we could do with that money now to fix our basic infrastructure.
Hospitals across the state are in varied levels of decay. The major trauma hospital that treats our most vulnerable and injured is overrun with vermin.
Imagine being a cancer patient or road trauma patient and having to recover in a crowded ward with mice and rats. Sadly, this is the work environment for our amazing nurses, doctors and allied health professionals.
Yet, the government wastes money on projects instead of investing much-needed money into our health system, which we all need and rely on.
I look at the grants and funding supplied to groups across the community. I am not saying particular groups don’t need support or do not deserve funding, but this is a case of priorities. Should we, while being tied to a massive mountain of debt, still be pushing cash into niche issues when we need investment in old-fashioned, key necessities such as the roads used by the majority of Victorians?
Labor needs to get back to basics. Victorians need a government that has their back at a time when so many need support. Not a government that ignores them and throws money around like confetti.
Peter Walsh, Leader of the Nationals
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