This week in State Parliament – 17 September 2015

This week in State Parliament, Liberal and Nationals MPs sought answers on further allegations of Labor MPs rorting taxpayer funds through sham employment of electorate staff, and called on the Premier to refer the allegations to the police or IBAC for investigation.

We questioned the Premier over his backdown on his previous support for the China Australia Free Trade Agreement, and whether this backdown was due to pressure from the CFMEU and other unions.

We also continued to highlight examples of the costs to businesses and jobs, and to the wages of casual employees, of Labor’s decision to hold a new public holiday on Grand Final eve.

We won support in the Legislative Council to pass a motion condemning the Minister for Public Transport for her bungled handling of changes to regional rail services, which have caused huge delays and disruptions for rail users.

We called for more to be done to strengthen Victoria’s sex offender laws following the tragic murder of Masa Vukotic, including laws on bail, electronic monitoring, sharing of information by authorities, and sentencing.

We also exposed flaws in the government’s new “consorting” laws that to try to stop crime gang members from associating with each other, pointing out that the pages of detailed requirements in the laws risk making them too bureaucratic to work properly.