Wednesday, 12 August 2026

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (17:31): I am pleased to rise today on the grievance debate, because I do grieve for the state of Victoria. The fact of the matter is that this state has lost integrity. Let us talk about integrity. Let us talk about it and what it means. It is a very, very clear statement: being honest, having strong moral rules and doing what is right when no-one is watching. That is integrity. Now let us compare that statement to what we have seen from this government.

I am going to start with the Premier himself. I am going to start with the very first two words of this statement: being honest. Being honest is very, very important, and the Premier has proven straight off the bat that he is not honest. He could stand at a press conference and look someone in the eye and say to them, ‘I’m happy to be the deputy, I’m happy in my portfolio space; you have my full support.’ And then within two weeks the now Premier knifed the former Premier, the member for Bendigo East, in the back. That lacks integrity because he was never being honest. That is the truth.

Let us have a look at another statement he made on that same day:

I’ve got a young daughter at home, and I couldn’t be more proud to make sure she grows up knowing that I supported Jacinta Allan …

or the member for Bendigo East in this chamber. That was never an honest statement. That in itself lacks integrity, pure and simple. You cannot deny it. You cannot put a spin on it. They are there in black and white, the words from the man that now sits in that chair. There is no integrity with the new Premier. We are talking about a Premier who has been at this cabinet table for the best part of a decade. He is trying very, very hard to separate himself. He came out and said, ‘I am not Daniel Andrews, I am not Jacinta Allan.’ But he was happy to sit at that cabinet table for a decade and be complicit in every decision that came out of that cabinet room. That tells me that the new Premier lacks integrity, because now we see he has got more backflips than a circus clown. Not only does he lack integrity, if his true conviction and his stand now is what it is, then he also lacked courage in that cabinet room.

The coalition have been very strong from the start on the $15 billion in corruption. We called for a royal commission, and we were the first to call for a royal commission. But the now Premier came out and said at the time, ‘We don’t need a royal commission. It takes too long and it’s too expensive.’ He repeated that claim time and time again, but when the polls started going south, when the approvals started going south, all of a sudden he has a change of heart. And he stated why he stabbed the former Premier in the back: it was because of the polls. That was the reason. It was not about his integrity, because he has none, and that is the problem. That is the problem and Victorians know it. But now he has come out and backflipped and said, ‘We have to have a royal commission.’ That is a big, big backflip from the commentary for the previous six months. That is a massive backflip. So where does he stand? He does not stand on his convictions, I can tell you that, because his actions prove that.

So now we are having a royal commission, but here is the problem, and again, I come back to integrity: I do not think he is being honest. I do not think this royal commission will get up before the end of this term. I think he is saying what he needs to say so Victorians think he might be different. But he is no different. He was Daniel Andrews’s apprentice, and he was the right-hand man to the former Premier, the member for Bendigo East. He sat right in that chair and was there for every decision, every day. He has no integrity, he is not honest and he lacks courage. He has stabbed the former Premier in the back – and that is what he has done – only because he was worried about the polls, and by extension, worried about his own seat. This was not for Victoria, this was for self-preservation. That is the worst motivation for any member of Parliament to have, because your number one priority should be your community, not yourself, and this is where this man is selfish, lacks integrity and lacks honesty. That is what he is, and he will not change his spots. He will do anything he needs to do. He was there when the $15 billion claim came out, he was there when decisions were made and he would have been involved in the conversations, or he would have heard the conversations, about the corruption in the construction industry in this state. And if he did not, he was either one of two things: deaf or incompetent, because those drums were loud. They were loud. Everyone knew it. Everyone on that side of the chamber knew it, and they denied it. They tried to bury it like it never happened.

The problem with this government is that it lacked integrity from the start. Back in 2014 – again, being honest – there was the red shirts scandal, and the member for Hawthorn touched on this earlier. We saw through that campaign that they illegally used staff to go out and campaign and then denied it ever happened. This comes back to integrity, and the second part of the statement is about doing what is right when no-one is watching. This is the problem with this government: when nobody is watching, they will try and cover up and make it a secret. Red shirts is a very good example. They claimed they did nothing wrong. They claimed there was nothing to see. The member for Hawthorn stated earlier that there were MPs that signed off on time sheets, knowing full well that those electoral officers were out there campaigning. An MP signed off on those time sheets. That is not being honest. Then when it finally came out and the figure came out, they said, ‘We’ll pay it back, but we did nothing wrong.’ That is not being honest. That lacks integrity, as do the statements that side make about us over here and how we are going to govern when we do win in November this year.

I will tell you what the first cut that will be made will be. I am being honest: the first cut that will be made will be by the Victorian public to the amount of MPs on that side of the chamber. That is the first cut that is going to be made, and it will not be made by the coalition; it will be made by the Victorian public to the amount of MPs on that side of the chamber.

Members interjecting.

Wayne FARNHAM: I can take up your interjections all day long – I am more than happy to – but that is what is going to happen, and that is being honest. The Labor members will be the first thing the Victorian public cut, because they have had enough. They have had enough of the lack of integrity. That is why it will happen – that is exactly why it will happen. This government, from 2014 right through to now, has been caught out time and time again. It cannot even be honest with the Victorian public about the Suburban Rail Loop. This is funny – I think it is still TBC in the budget; I am not quite sure. The former minister is at the table – maybe he can correct me, and I would be happy to be corrected.

Members interjecting.

Wayne FARNHAM: It is still TBC in the budget. But they cannot be honest. They are saying that in 2020 this project was priced at $34.5 billion, but it is still on time and on budget six years later.

A member: It is. Okay, it’s true.

Wayne FARNHAM: Yes, I am sure it is. Then why can’t we get a budget figure for it? If that is the case, why isn’t it in the budget at that price? They have not been transparent with the contracts that have been signed or the escape clauses. We have a Premier now that said this was going to be the biggest and best thing to happen to Victoria, but now he is really thinking of pulling the rug out from under it. How many construction jobs will that lose when they do that? This new Premier, because he has no conviction, will flip and flop to suit himself. He will flip and flop to get the polls up, but I do not think that is going to happen. How many thousands of jobs will that lose? He is not an honest man.

I actually had more respect for the former Premier, the member for Bendigo East. I had more respect for her because she stood for what she believed all the time. I did not agree with her – my goodness, I did not agree with her probably 95 per cent of the time – but I had respect for her. I have no respect for this new Premier because he will just change with the direction of the wind. That is how he is built, and that is what Victorians are going to see. That is the problem. It is ingrained in the DNA of this party. It is ingrained in the DNA and their honesty.

Let us talk about the Commonwealth Games – a nice little $600 million hit to the state of Victoria. We were told at the last election this would be the best thing for regional Victoria, but that was an empty promise just to win seats. That is all it was – it was an empty promise. Logistically, they could never deliver these games in regional Victoria. You cannot deliver games from Morwell to Bendigo and make sure it will work. It was never going to happen. It was always a furphy, and it cost us $600 million to cancel that. But what was even worse than that, if the cancellation was not bad enough, was the total dishonesty about the price of what the games were expected to cost. I can remember the then Premier Daniel Andrews standing up there with a little bit of paper this big, going, ‘Look, it’s going to cost $7 billion. That’s why we have to cancel.’ I remember yelling out, interjecting, ‘Show me the quotes.’ He never had a quote. That figure I believe in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee was proved to be overinflated. Even with the cancellation of the games, they could not be honest. This is what Victorians have woken up to. Victorians are not stupid; they are smart people. They have seen the spin and the deception time and time again. Now they are turning on this government because they know there is a better option. They know there is a better option than what is over there now, and that will be proven in November this year.

People are saying to me it does not matter now who leads that side. It will not matter. It will not change their mind come the election, because they have had enough. The greatest deception that happened in my community was the West Gippsland hospital. Be honest. ‘We’ll start it in 2024. We’ll open it by 2029.’ There are still cows in the paddock today. Remember even back to the 2022 election when the then Premier Andrews stood up and said, ‘We can have it all. We can have the infrastructure, you can have the hospitals. It’s all going to happen.’ Well, it has proven again to not be honest, and there is a lack of integrity. And that is the problem: they do not know integrity. It does not matter how many leaders sit over that side of the chamber. They can change the new Premier for another one if they want to, and it is not going to make any difference come this election. It is not going to make any difference, because not only has my community woken up to what they are about but Victoria has woken up to what this government is about. They lack integrity. It is the first two words of that statement, two simple words that that side struggle with: being honest – being honest with Victorians and being honest with your constituents. Come 28 November, the lack of integrity is why this mob will not be there.