Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (10:15): I am very pleased to rise to talk about the committee that I am on, the Legislative Assembly Economy and Infrastructure Committee, and talk about our inquiry into commonwealth support for Victoria. I am very pleased to follow on from the chair of our committee, the member for Lara, who has done an outstanding job chairing the committee for the last three years.

This is our third inquiry, and like the member for Lara I am very pleased to report that we work really well with the opposition members on the committee. I would really like to commend the member for Narracan, the member for Ferntree Gully and the member for Euroa for their contributions and attending as well as my good friends the member for Geelong and the member for Northcote, who is also going to be speaking today on this important committee report that was tabled just last week.

I am very pleased to say that the secretariat for our committee is outstanding, led by committee manager Kerryn Riseley. Our former research officer is in the chamber at the moment—I am delighted to see her here—Dr Marianna Stylianou, an incredible research officer, who has been awarded already for the great work that she has done for our committee. We are very sad to know that she has been promoted. She has a great new opportunity and will continue to do committee work, and we wish her every success in her new role and thank her very much for the excellent work that she has done for us. I would also like to thank Janelle Spielvogel, who is our admin officer and who does a great job, as well as Anna Scott, who was in the role until 22 October 2021.

The evidence received by the committee showed that the new GST distribution arrangements pose a significant risk to Victoria’s finances and Victoria is set to lose billions of dollars if the no-worse-off guarantee expires and the arrangements remain unchanged. Our committee has really tried to get a strong sense of why this is occurring, what the considerations have been that have brought about this change that is going to be introduced in five years time and how this will actually play out for Victoria and other impacted states.

The report made 10 findings, which I am really going to talk to today. I know that our chair just talked about the seven recommendations, but the findings really give us an insight into the substantial GST revenue loss that Victoria and most other states are facing, not only in the medium term but in the long term.

What I was really pleased about with this inquiry was the people who presented to us and the high-calibre economists and well-known names who wanted to contribute their ideas to this important inquiry, including Mike Callaghan, the chair, and Jonathan Rollings, the secretary, of the Commonwealth Grants Commission; Saul Eslake, who many of us will know as a bit of a TV economist, who is from Corinna Economic Advisory group; Dr Angela Jackson, who is an outstanding woman economist—she was the lead economist for Equity Economics and is often on ABC News 24 providing analysis; and Chris Murphy, another one of our TV economists and a leading fellow at the ANU. We also had Ryan Batchelor from the McKell Institute, Xavier Boffa and Thomas Rowe from the Samuel Griffith Society and Troy Edwards from the Municipal Association of Victoria.

From the Department of Treasury and Finance, who are really on the front line of these changes and how we are losing so much money for Victoria in the future, we had David Martine, the secretary; Chris Barrett, the deputy secretary; and Andrew Witchard, the executive director of the revenue group. Importantly we also had Emma King and Deborah Fewster from the Victorian Council of Social Service, because we know that when Victoria loses billions of dollars in revenue in the future it is going to impact on service provision. It is going to mean cuts, and that would be very concerning particularly to our most vulnerable Victorians. We also heard from Winifred Scott, chair of the Mallee regional partnership, and there are some really great recommendations and findings about the importance of investing in regional Victoria, which I am very passionate about.

I am going to have to speak on this committee report a number of times because there is so much in it. I will just literally go through the first finding with my last bit of time, saying that we are predicted to lose a lot of GST revenue—between $87 million and $1.2 billion. It is not good enough. We need to save Victoria.

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