Can I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of land and acknowledge the elders past, present, and emerging.
To the Melbourne Press Club, can I thank you for the great honour of inviting me as a guest today. I just want to pay tribute to the role of the media, you play a critical role, a very critical role, but I appreciate it and I'm proud and acknowledge how lucky we are to live in a state and in a country where we have a free media and as much as we might say that as politicians our job is tough, we know that your job is hard too.
You've got everybody pitching to you as well and you have to decide what columns you're going to write, what articles you're going to write. It can't be easy, but you should be proud of the work you do and I can say on behalf of my colleagues that we appreciate the opportunity to work with you as well. So Nick to you and the Press Club, thank you so much.
I have a number of colleagues who are here today and I was hoping I could prevail upon them. Can I get you all just to stand up quickly so I can make sure I get everybody and thank you for coming along. So we've got Georgie Crozier, James Newbury, Brad Rowswell, Jess Wilson, Matt Bach, Bridget Vallance, and Evan Mulholland, I don't think I've missed anyone so on behalf of them and all of my colleagues again, thank you so much.
We've got other distinguished guests, the State Director of the Victorian Liberal Party here today, a number of members of the Administrative Committee who are supporting us here today.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Nick was right. You know that wasn't an easy night and what you didn't see on there and what you might not have seen on the night was that I was getting a lot of messages, particularly from my wife and three daughters, who were watching all of this unfold and a lot of things go through your mind when you're going through something like that.
And I have to tell you, as it became clear to me, when one of my staff who was with me on the night was feeding me that results and it looked like it was heading south, I didn't think about the long journey that had taken me to that and I thought about what my parents had gone through, what I had to go through with my family, because a political journey requires that your family be conscripted to that, so for my kids, all of those failed pre-selection attempts that preceded Hawthorn were all part of that journey. And I sat there thinking about okay, this has happened, how do I go out?
And so that's what you saw that night, to channelling everything that in particular, my family and I had been through over a very long period of time. I first ran for office back in 1994, so a lot of tries before I finally got there in 2014. So, to then go down in 2018 wasn't exactly easy. But you know, there was an interesting exchange I had with my older brother, I'm one of four kids, the next day, and he said to me, "John, this is going to make you a better politician" and at the time, I probably wasn't as receptive to that advice, as you might imagine.
But he was right and that, in a sense, for reasons you might find surprising, that experience made me a better person, it made me a better politician and I think it made me a better leader to go through that. I didn't want it to happen. Like everybody, I just wanted a string of successes all in a row until we're ready to hop off the stage and make way for somebody else. But it was all part of the learning and discovery about how I might do things better and my brother was right.
So out of that, you know the ashes of that experience, I started writing a column, I started appearing on radio regularly and I re-emerged on my own terms. And it wasn't just me on my own, there was a team around me that helped us we with Hawthorn back. But I was able to come back as I said on my terms.
So it's a very important episode in my own journey towards the leadership of the Liberal Party and a lot of it has to do with my family background. Nick touched on some of it, growing up in fairly modest surroundings in Gippsland, one of five kids to Italian migrant parents who had very little education but pumped us, you know, really drove us to work hard and have a go and not worry about failure, not worry about setbacks. They lived through the war as very young kids and they probably hadn't had the experiences that others had, but it was still tough. Poverty surrounded them, disadvantage surrounded them, injustices surrounded them as they grew up in Italy.
So when they came to Australia, the opportunity, the promise of our state and our country, they injected all of that into us kids. So for me going through what you saw on the screen, paled and I was conscious of this at the time, paled in significance as to what they'd been through, and others like them, not just from Southern Europe, but in countries where people have come to Australia and Victoria, in search of a better life, and to see the promise of our great state and country.
You know, there's a story, I've told once or twice before, that I might just relate to here, which sort of tells you everything about why I'm Liberal, and what I inherited from the family. So I was a little rascal in school and I kind of fancied myself a kind of, for those of you who know the film the Great Escape, I loved Steve McQueen in that film, and has this kind of lovable rogue and I was like that. Until about Year 10, Year 11, I started to get serious about politics as a very exciting, inspirational vocation. So I had to smarten up and start focusing on my studies.
And so my parents, dad was a sparky, mum was a machinist, bringing up five kids. So they understand that their trouble plagued boy wants to get serious about his career. So they go out knowing that I want to study hard to try to get into law, because I saw that as a pathway to political participation. So they go and spend what must have been at that time '87, '88, the equivalent about maybe one or two weeks salary in a modest home, and they buy me this orange swivel chair, this office chair.
And it was about injecting me with a sense of confidence, and belief in my parents that I could do this, because I went to a great little school, it was a small Catholic school in Traralgon, but I didn't know of anyone from that school, who had ever gone to law, or medicine. Most ended up working in trades in Latrobe Valley, which is fine.
But I had my sights set on a different path and I've never known anybody who got this and I was looking at the ceiling thinking how am I going to get up that hill. And my parents understood that even though they didn't have the academic opportunities I would later have, they understood that one of their kids wanted to do this.
So they made the sacrifice, it's a great chair and I loved it so much I did the typical migrant thing and covered it in a cloth, so I didn't, you know, destroy the chair. It was an orange swivel chair and I felt like a million bucks in his chair and I studied my butt off. And as it turns out, I wanted to go to Melbourne and I miss out on one mark on the first round offers, but I got I there on the second round.
And I tell you this story, because for me, it symbolises a lot and it's probably the simplest way I can tell you about why I'm here and why I want to lead. Sacrifice, belief, hope, opportunity, possibility, promise, all embodied in the simple, generous, loving act of two parents, buying a really great chair for their son and I've never forgotten it.
And so when I speak to you today, after all the years that have intervened since, that's the best way, the simplest way I can convey to you, what I want for everybody in our state. That opportunity, that sense of promise, that sense that you can do whatever you want and we'll support you to get there. We'll support you to realise your aspirations. That's why I want to lead this state.
I want opportunities for all, the same opportunities I had. A state where we share our prosperity, while rewarding hard work and enterprise and a state that embodies that the very best in public sector administration, the very best and encouraging people to invest here, create jobs here, opportunities for all. I want Victoria to be a benchmark for the very best. And I know we can do that.
I want our state to be confident and hungry as we approach global audiences and markets. I want us to be a leader for the rest of the country. And I want Victoria to be a driver of reform in our federation, not just to sit quietly and passively, but to be active, aggressive even in pursuing reform opportunities that benefit Victoria, but also the whole country and that's what I want to do and that's why I want to lead.
But I've got to tell you, there are some challenges we face. And I've spoken about some of these, but I want to in the time I've got with you, take you through just a handful of them. There are many others, but these are the ones I wanted to deal with today.
Our state needs an economic vision. It doesn't have one. We've seen from the recent budget, the kind of approach this government takes the future of our economy. I want an economy and my colleagues share this view, an economy that is a destination for investment and jobs. And we don't have any articulation of that either in the budget or elsewhere, from the government.
Public Sector demand has been propping up economic growth in our state and that's not a bad thing necessarily, but going forward, and in a sustainable way over the course of the future, we need private sector growth to be better than it is now and that means making Victoria an attractive place to invest. The Budget papers that you've seen recently from the government show that growth will taper off over the forward estimates. That joblessness will actually increase over time.
And as for small business strategy, there is none. Over 700,000 small businesses in Victoria, where's the plan to boost that sector and give it relief? The government capital program which has been propping up growth will taper off as the government says over the forward estimates, so it's now more important than ever, that we turn our minds to how are we going to make the Victoria the best investment destination.
Now for any government, the primary statement of economic policy is the budget. Now, I know I've spoken at length about this in the media over recent weeks, and I'm just going to touch on it briefly today if that's okay. You've got a paradox in this budget, high taxes, but debt go up, high taxes, interest goes up and joblessness goes up. None of that makes any sense. It's not logical and as I said, if you are a government that wants to boost growth, make Victoria that engine room than it can be, that's not the way to do it.
In terms of Victoria's tax burden. We put some numbers out there and you've seen from the Parliamentary Budget Office, it's not just us, Victorians are paying more tax than anywhere else, on average $5,100, which is nearly $400 more than Australians in other states and territories are paying. And let me talk briefly about the school's tax jobs, tax and rent tax.
I want to say today, particularly after the debacle that we've seen in PAEC over the last few days, where Tim Pallas has blamed Natalie Hutchins, the Education Minister, and Natalie Hutchins is now blaming the Treasurer, for what is a punitive tax on education and a tax on schools. I again use this opportunity to say to the Andrews government, withdraw this punitive tax on independent and denominations. It's not fair, we've never done it in the past.
And if that's not enough of a reason, in terms of respecting aspiration and choice that families make to sacrifice, like my parents did, with their kids' education, consider this. There are nearly $11 billion of new taxes over the forward estimates. Even at the top end of the forecast for what the Schools Tax would bring in, in that scheme of things, it's $422 million for the benefit of burdening independent schools with this tax, which will simply be the thin end of the wedge.
This is a bad tax and we shouldn't be in the business of punishing parents, whether they want to send their kids to a low fee paying or even a high fee paid school, it shouldn't matter, they're making the choice. And in defence of all of our independent and denominational schools, let me reiterate, as I have in recent times, they are not for profits. Many of them allocate 30 to 40% of their places for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and they all do an enormous amount of charitable and philanthropic work, in our community, so why punish them? It's not fair and it is regressive and the government should withdraw it.
As for the jobs tax, the payroll tax increase that you probably know that by now. Again, if we want to make Victoria the investment destination, that is not the way to go. There are other measures that government could take in its budget to rein in debt, rein in spending, without impacting on the very sector we need to fuel up to produce more jobs and investment in our state. And as for the rent tax law, lowering the Land tax free threshold, it's only going to hit people on low and middle incomes more than anyone else.
Unfair taxes simply to plug the government's budget mismanagement holes. So we don't have an economic vision, the government's proposal, articulated in its budget will actually send us backwards and we know that from its own budget. We on the other hand, take a different approach. We believe that investment in jobs is the way out of business, not taxes. And I announced recently that we would undertake a comprehensive tax review, that work is not going to wait until we will win government in 2026.
I can announce today that Brad Rowswell will be, in the coming weeks, launching a discussion paper, the first in a series on the tax reform options that we'll be looking at as we go forward. We want to be ambitious on this front. It's about investment, it's about jobs, it's about opportunities for all Victorians.
And we won't just look at Victoria's tax system, we have a big vision for what we mean by reform and I talked before about Victoria, being an engine room of reforming our federation. We will look at difficult challenges like vertical fiscal imbalance, horizontal fiscal imbalance, the conundrum that state governments over time have always faced where they don't raise the money, but they have obligations to make allocations in health, education, child protection, justice, right across the range of services that governments have to provide.
We will be committed to an ambitious look at these taxes so that when we do win government, we will be ready to implement measures. I've also announced that we will reinstate a Victorian form of the Productivity Commission, something that will develop an economic plan for Victoria, to look at reform opportunities, again, to attract investors not just domestically but internationally, to Victoria. And it won't just be about private sector innovation, productivity, but it'll be about innovation in the public sector as well, making Victoria the engine room of public policy like it used to be and it's not anymore.
Another challenge of our talk about quickly is infrastructure. It's one of the biggest single challenges our state faces. $30 billion in blowouts, according to the auditor general's office, so you don't need to take my word for it, we need greater public oversight and cost control. And there's a huge piece of work that needs to be done. And we'll be looking at this over the period, about how we can better secure delivery models that enable us to control costs.
The government seems to favour what we call the Alliance model, which is basically an open chequebook. So projects get managed by the winning consortium, who have no interest in reining in costs. They just pass them on to taxpayers. That's not sustainable and the government is quite happy with that approach. We need a better approach which says those who succeed in these tenders have an obligation to minimise costs and you can't just look to the Victorian taxpayer, and say, you will keep funding overruns and blowouts on major projects. So we will take a critical look at the Alliance model, and investigate other options for project delivery that protect taxpayers, but deliver the projects we need
I can also reiterate what I've flagged before, which is we will shortly announce some measures to deal with corruption on major projects. We know that millions, possibly tens of millions of dollars are going out the door due to corruption, including recent reports of ghost shifts. So Michael O'Brien is leading some work there which we'll announce in the near future, which will deal with them.
Another challenge our state faces is inequity between Melbourne and our regions. We're very conscious that whether it's roads maintenance, health, mental health, access to services, that there is a growing inequity between regional Victoria and Melbourne. The Commonwealth Games won't touch the sides of dealing with that problem. Yes, it is good to deal with some legacy infrastructure around home ownership and housing affordability for those who need that kind of support. But where's the investment in roads, hospitals, schools? Where's the future vision about how our state will look overall?
And that's where we differ again, we differ from the government because even on some specific measures, we've talked previously about guaranteeing 25% funding for regional Victorian infrastructure, we've talked about $10 billion over 10 years for roads maintenance, but we're looking at it more broadly and a bit more ambitiously than that. We think there needs to be proper population policy.
It's one thing I want to pay tribute to Matthew Guy for. In the 2014/18 period he did commence some solid work around population policy, which looked at the whole state, not just Melbourne and on particular projects which went through marginal seats. Let's put the politics out. Let's look at the whole state and what we need. Melbourne, to be the one of the most liveable cities in the world, can't continue to sustain all of the growth. We want a state of cities where our development is more balanced and there are opportunities there which we will talk about.
Quickly on integrity, I'll just touch on this very quickly. IBAC, the Ombudsman and the Auditor General all need to be beefed up. We will do that, that is a huge challenge. Another broad challenge, which I know you're conscious of is politicisation of the public service and I want to mention this, this is a priority for us.
I'm a big believer in the Westminster system, the checks and balances that exist. Governments may not like it when public servants give frank and fearless advice that's contrary to what they want to do, but we're all better off as a state with a public service that is allowed to do its job and we're committed to restoring that in Victoria. You will remember the days when Victoria's public service was seen as number one in our country, that the standards and the principles that it embodied, that needs to be undertaken.
Also, just quickly on the integrity and public sector reform, I want to see changes to the way we tender and more public scrutiny of how we tender. At this very moment, the a ACCC is looking at Connect East. Transurban wants to acquire a controlling interest in horizon limits. One of the most significant acquisitions we may see in a while. We have seen nothing from the government about the implications of one entity owning all of Victoria's toll roads.
Now, I'm not saying right here and now that it should or shouldn't proceed. There may be other bidders for Connect East, which is EastLink, but the point is, are we thinking broadly about what this means for Victoria. Recently, Richard Riordan did some great work on the public ticketing tender with the Myki system's replacement. Again, questions about how much probity surrounds and order surrounds our tendering processes.
I want to touch briefly on environment. I think the government has dropped the ball on transmission. For me and my colleagues, in order to effect that transition to net zero in the decades ahead. More needs to be done on transition. We take a different view and as some people will appreciate by now, around the SEC. We don't believe that that's the best use of the government's money, we'll have a look at their proposal, but it's not clear what they're proposing in terms of the SEC and engineering.
At the moment, the SEC looks nearly like an investment fund and it's creating confusion in the market when our big concerns, are these: It doesn't matter how much generation you make if it can't be transmitted into homes and businesses, there are questions over supply constraints which are going to affect all aspects of energy and the transition to net zero. So that's why we're sceptical about the government's approach to energy. We want an orderly auction system, which allows people to put the best proposals forward which gets us to that net zero future, but doesn't jeopardise reliability, and affordability of supply.
And finally, just briefly on the challenges I want to touch on today, homeownership and housing affordability. Jess Wilson is leading that work for us. We think it's one of the great challenges particularly for young people in our state.
I guess what I would say to you, ladies and gentlemen, is that we face a number of challenges if we are to be that state I described at the start, where opportunity is there for all. We have a government frankly that is tired. We've seen evidence of corruption we've seen more than enough evidence of incompetence and there's more we need to do there.
Finally, just on the future of the party, you've heard me talk about reform. Reform is about winning, what we need to do as a party, the Liberal Party, to win, and my main point to you hear today is that if Labor can represent 56 seats representing inner, outer growth, rural and regional areas then we can too and I'm determined to be a party that relates broadly for me as a Liberal growing up and a Liberal standing before you today.
The things I want to champion most are universal and timeless principals that can apply to anybody no matter what your background, no matter what your religious background, ethnic background or sexual preference or identity, the idea of enterprising culture can appeal to everybody the security that comes from the rule of law and equal treatment and fair treatment by government applies to anybody.
The importance of communities and families supporting each other that can apply to everybody. So for me the Liberal party can be that broad entity it needs to be to reach the Victorians we want to reach, whether they vote for us or not, that is the party I want that believes in opportunity for all that enterprising culture.
Nothing personal, but I think the government has run out of puff, it's exhausted. PAEC, if you needed any evidence that the government is at sixes and sevens, over its own measures including in the budget, you've got it right there before you.
Victoria deserves better we can do better and what I'm saying to all of you that as a team, you can hopefully see how hungry we are to make Victoria that idol of innovation, enterprising opportunity for everyone. If you can see that in the government, you need to tell me where. We've got the energy and hunger to do this.
We've lost the last three elections but we don't intend to lose the fourth. We will win that and we will do it by winning hearts, working hard and winning over those Victorians we need to secure office in 2026.
Thank you very much.
