This week in State Parliament – 6 August 2015

This week in State Parliament, Liberal and National MPs set up a Parliamentary inquiry to examine Labor’s Port of Melbourne lease legislation.

This legislation seeks to authorise the government to give a port monopoly of up to 70 years, meaning Port Phillip Bay heads will need to be blasted if the next generation of container ships are to reach Victoria’s only container port.

The inquiry will be able to take evidence from port users, port operators, environmental experts and others to find out what needs to be done to get this legislation right. Melbourne’s port and our bay are very important parts of our state, and we can’t afford to have Labor’s port lease deal turn into another desalination plant or myki.

The Coalition also highlighted Labor’s rushed review of the Country Fire Authority, driven by the United Firefighters Union, which threatens the future of CFA volunteers and for which only four weeks have been allowed for submissions.

We questioned the Premier about whether he would accept the recommendation of the head of the Department of Premier and Cabinet that, in light of the findings about how former Minister Somyurek’s office was being run, there should be a capability review into the running of the offices of all Ministers in the Andrews Government.

We also exposed the fact the Agriculture Fund the Premier announced last Sunday, which was supposed to benefit Victorian farmers, in fact looks set to be spend on projects such as road and bridge upgrades for the Princes Highway between Melbourne and Geelong, most of which won’t benefit Victorian farmers.

As well, the Coalition highlighted the disruption and job losses being caused in country Victoria by the government’s mishandling of the completion and opening of the new Melbourne Market.