By Bridget Vallence
Today (Tuesday 7 May) the State Budget will be handed down, just hours after this Star Mail News edition goes to print.
It is a real opportunity for the government to ease cost-of-living pressures and maintain frontline services our state desperately needs.
A real opportunity to tackle the housing and health crises, and upgrade dangerous and potholed roads in our community.
A real opportunity to arrest the financial mismanagement and reckless waste that we have seen under the Allan Labor Government.
After a decade of state Labor budgets, we ask ourselves: is life getting any easier?
When Labor was elected in 2014, Victoria’s net debt was $22 billion.
Today it’s $135.5 billion and by 2026/27 is projected to be $178 billion (which could be higher once today’s Budget is revealed).
That’s a sevenfold increase in net debt in 10 years and more than NSW, Queensland and Tasmania combined.
While the government continues to blame the COVID pandemic for this extraordinary debt that our grandchildren will be burdened with, that’s not true because there’s $43 billion new debt being added over the next three years due to inner-city infrastructure projects (over budget and years behind schedule), and interest repayments on the debt projected to reach a staggering $24 million per day.
With debt at record highs, the government has only two options: cut services or increase taxes.
Troublingly, we are hearing they will do both.
Over the past 10 years Labor has added 53 new or increased taxes on Victorians including new taxes on rent, jobs, health, schools, and tourism.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures confirm that Victorians pay the highest state taxes in the country at $5,795 per person.
Instead of new taxes, Victoria needs tax reform to encourage investment, growth, and economic opportunity.
Today’s Budget is a real opportunity to axe taxes instead of raising them, and to end project blowouts and waste, ease cost-of-living pressures, and have a credible plan to pay down debt and grow Victoria’s economy.
Today’s Budget is also an opportunity for transparency about Maroondah Hospital upgrades (promised in 2018), or if the Maroondah Highway at Killara Road in Coldstream will finally be duplicated and made safer (funded in 2019).
We will be scrutinising the Budget closely to see if funding is allocated to make Warburton Highway in Seville East safer, to improve bus services across Mt Evelyn and the Yarra Valley, to upgrade drainage infrastructure to mitigate flooding, or to improve health services and access to housing.
In Parliament I’ll continue fighting for a Budget that provides what our community needs and deserves.
