Victoria’s budget woes continue to weight down premier Jacinta Allan’s government. In the last sitting week of the year, Labor has introduced a swag of new laws to tackle crime and problem gambling. But the packed agenda is being overshadowed by debt and deep deficit.
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00:00Safer poker machine rules, more police powers to crack down on knife crime, and wider, tougher
00:07hate speech laws.
00:09It's a full legislative agenda for the last parliamentary session of the year.
00:13Long flagged hate speech laws to tackle growing social disharmony, the top of Labor's bill.
00:18Sex, gender, disability and orientation will join race and religion as protected attributes,
00:22with the threshold for charges lowered.
00:25I don't want anyone to be charged by these laws.
00:28I don't want people behaving in a way that you attract the police charges.
00:32Despite the substantial agenda, the government continues to be pulled down by its soaring
00:35debt.
00:36It's limiting policy options and the government is considering what other assets it can lease
00:40or sell.
00:41Treasurer Tim Pallis also defending the state's economy amid claims it's the worst in the
00:46nation.
00:47Spare me the nonsense about Victoria being economically challenged.
00:53Strongest performing economy in the nation for ten years.
00:57That's despite the Auditor-General finding gross debt is now forecast to grow to $228
01:01billion in four years.
01:04He's labelled the current deficits unsustainable.
01:07And as those budget pressures build, so too does the tension between the Treasurer and
01:11Premier.
01:12Well there's creative tension, I think it would be, we're like the Lennon and McCartney
01:17of politics.
01:18I thought we were more Kylie and Jason, but that's okay.
01:21As Premier, as Treasurer, you would absolutely expect and indeed demand that there is a robust,
01:29vigorous, intelligent exchange.
01:32There's also been a vigorous exchange of jobs in the Nationals.
01:35The Nationals party room has elected me as the leader of the Nationals.
01:41Former journalist Danny O'Brien was the only candidate after long-serving leader Peter
01:45Walsh moved to the backbench.
01:46He was first elected in 2002.
01:49There might be little tweaks between the way Walshie did things and the way I do things,
01:54but absolutely we will continue to make sure that whatever we are doing is in the best
01:58interests of rural and regional Victoria.
02:01The Nationals are keen to take more of that territory off Labor in two years' time.
02:05The Coalition is banking on it.