This week in State Parliament – 10 December 2015
This week in State Parliament, Liberal and National MPs exposed the fact that under Labor’s proposed Western Distributor plan announced this week, eastern and south-eastern suburbs motorists will be forced to pay thousands of dollars in extra CityLink tolls towards the cost of a $5 billion road they will seldom use, between the Westgate freeway and Footscray Road.
We also called on the Premier to apologise after an Auditor-General’s report found that the cost of scrapping the East West Link had reached $1.1 billion, despite Daniel Andrews dishonestly telling voters before the election that he could cancel the contract at no cost.
We forced the government to agree to negotiate amendments to its Port of Melbourne privatisation legislation, to prevent the government from selling out the long term interests of port users and the Victorian economy in order to maximise short term sale proceeds.
We highlighted shortages of police caused by Labor’s cuts to police numbers, in stations such as Gippsland Lakes, Orbost and Waurn Ponds, which will soon experience huge increases in visitor numbers and traffic during the summer holiday period.
We called on the Premier to end all Labor Party ties with John Setka and the CFMEU, after Mr Setka was charged with blackmail following an extensive police investigation.
We also opposed Labor’s attempt to weaken bail laws by removing any penalties for juvenile offenders who breach bail conditions. Under Labor’s proposal, the offence of breaching bail conditions will no longer apply to juveniles, meaning breach by juveniles of bail conditions such as curfews, no-go zones or not approaching witnesses will go unpunished