Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) -- I do not intend to speak on the budget for very long, because quite frankly I do not think the budget deserves it. What we have seen with this budget is more of the same: no vision and no hope for Victoria or Victorians. This is a boring budget from a boring government that is bored with being in government. After 11 years I suppose that is not surprising. The good news is that it has only a few months left.

By Christmas it will be gone and Victorians will as one rejoice in the new government that will take some interest in what is necessary to make Victoria the great place it should be. The bottom line is that it is time this government moved on. If it does not move on voluntarily, the electorate will move it on. I have no doubt that come 27 November this year that is exactly what will happen.

After almost 11 years in power, the government continues to show absolutely no respect for the taxpayer or for the taxpayer dollar. It is a bit like the federal government, the former Rudd government, as it was until a few hours ago. It spends money like it is going out of fashion. We have seen federally with the home insulation program and the Building the Education Revolution program, the latter of which was under the stewardship of the new Prime Minister, what disasters Australian taxpayers money has been used to fund. This is typical of what we can expect from the Labor Party whenever it reaches government at any level in this country.

It must break the hearts of people like former Prime Minister John Howard and former federal Treasurer Peter Costello to see what has happened federally, where a $28 billion surplus or thereabouts has been turned into an around $150 billion deficit. That is desperate. It reflects the attitude of the Labor Party, wherever it may be in government, towards taxpayers money. Unfortunately that attitude, so prevalent in Canberra, has also been prevalent here at the state level for almost 11 years.

That is the basic difference between the Labor Party and those of us on the conservative side of politics in this country: on this side of the house we believe that those who work hard for their money have a right to keep it -- or as much of it as is possible.

The Labor Party, indeed federally the socialists these days, has absolutely no compunction about reaching into people's pockets, about emptying their wallets, about tipping them upside down and shaking them until every cent falls from their pockets, and taking it and spending it at will. They have absolutely no concern and no worry about that at all.

There is a significant difference between those on this side of the house and those in government on attitude towards taxpayers and towards the right of taxpayers to keep as much of their own money as possible.

What we have in this state is a government that never tires of spending other people's money. In fact it has to be said that it has never seen a dollar that it did not want to spend, as long as it was not its own. I suppose the ultimate description of socialists is those who want to spend money until they run out, and as long as it is not their own, they will keep spending it.

That is very much the concern of many Victorians today as a result of what this government has done, because what you will never see from this Brumby government -- and never saw from the Bracks government previously -- is value for money. Members opposite will get up in this house and lecture us at very great length about how much they have spent on particular projects. They will tell us about the hundreds or thousands of millions of dollars they have spent on police or hospitals or ambulances or any number of services throughout the state, but they never tell us about outcomes. I think I know why: because, generally speaking, the outcomes are lousy. They are very bad outcomes.

Mrs Kronberg interjected.

Mr FINN -- Indeed, as Mrs Kronberg says, they have stuffed up. Labor has stuffed up again and again, and that is what we see too often.

For evidence of that we only have to look at myki, which surely has to go down in the annals of this state as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, financial disasters that any Victorian government has ever perpetrated.

I wonder at this moment, as I have before, exactly where we are in terms of spending on myki; we must have reached $1.5 billion by now. I know certainly out in the western suburbs we could do with that $1.5 billion. We could spend that $1.5 billion on services that people could actually use. As I have said in this house before, we have spent hundreds or thousands of millions of dollars on this particular scheme, and at this point in time we cannot even get a myki tram ticket to travel down Bourke Street. That is where this government has its priorities: they are about spending, not about the actual outcomes.

I do not know about other members -- and I might survey them later -- but I like to get value for money.

On those very rare occasions when I go shopping I like to get value for money. That is not something that this government is even mildly concerned about. It just does not seem to enter into the equation at all. Over recent months we have seen the latest foray of this government into a project called smart meters. I fear to think where that is going to end, because I think these smart meters have the potential to be an even greater financial disaster than myki.

Given the fact that Peter Batchelor, the Minister for Energy and Resources, is in charge of smart meters pretty much convinces me that it will be a total, unmitigated disaster. As we know, Mr Batchelor's stewardship of anything turns to disaster pretty quickly. He has the runs on the board on that score; his success rate is zilch.

In fact I think Mr Batchelor was the one who started myki when he was transport minister, if my recollection is correct.

This government will get up and beat its breast, it will tell us how much money it has spent -- it has spent hundreds of millions on this and on that. But the government will not tell you what it got for the money -- and that is the important part.

Sure, we want to know how much the government has spent. The Victorian public needs to know how much has been spent, but what we really need to know more than anything else is what we got for the money. What did we get for the $200 million or the $300 million? That is the important part, and unfortunately that is always the part that this government is not even mildly interested in. It does not care; it is not their money; it is not an issue; it does not know. That is the attitude of the Brumby government.

It is very sad when I see so many problems and the priorities of a government that could do so much if only it set its mind in the right direction. Unfortunately we have a government in this state that is far too busy playing games -- and it happens not just in this state: we saw it federally overnight. As the federal opposition leader, Mr Abbott, said in Parliament today, the Prime Minister had a midnight knock on the door; he was taken out and executed as a part of the thuggery that passes as normal politics within the ALP. This is going on all over the place.

There is one word, I suppose, out my way, in my electorate, that sums that all up -- that is, Brimbank. You only have to mention Brimbank and people know exactly what you are talking about.

It is all about the worst things in politics. It is about the sort of corruption that we normally associate with the ALP in New South Wales. That is something that the ALP and this government should address as a matter of priority. They have to clean their act up, because if they do not, they will stand condemned as a group of individuals who have stood by and allowed this to happen -- if not been involved in it themselves.

I do not wish to revisit the Brimbank issue and the corruption of the Brimbank council at any great length in this particular debate. But it has to be said that, whilst people cannot find a hospital bed, cannot get an ambulance and cannot find a policeman when they need one, a lot of money is going into places like Brimbank for the ALP to use as its personal play toy in its own games, in its own political party. That is intolerable; that is something this Parliament should not have to put up with. It is something that the community should not have to put up with.

One would hope -- probably hoping against hope, I would suggest -- that the ALP will come to its senses and will see that its priorities are all wrong in this regard. The ALP should stop playing its games and put the needs of Victorians before all else. That is what we need in this government; that is the change in priorities that we need in this government, but I shall not be holding my breath, I can assure members.

I mentioned before that myki is now up to about $1.5 billion of expenditure. I wondered aloud what we in the western suburbs could do or could buy with that $1.5 billion -- as well as the money spent on smart meters and on so many other programs this government has put into place that have blown up in its face.

Every day I think of the West Gate Freeway. Those who use the West Gate Freeway regularly, and I look around this chamber and do not see too many who do; Mr Koch would probably be a frequent user of it -- he must be!

He just shook his head and rolled his eyes; he knows exactly what I am talking about. He knows what the West Gate Freeway is like. 

Mr Koch -- I try to get over it. 

Mr FINN -- As Mr Koch says, he tries to get over the West Gate. That is the problem. This is the main gateway to Melbourne from not just the western suburbs but from western Victoria -- from Warrnambool, Colac and Geelong. Geelong is the second biggest city in Victoria. Many thousands of people who come to Melbourne every day have to use the bridge and the freeway, and it is just not up to it. What do we get from this government? It is going to put some fairy lights on the side of the bridge. That is sensational! It puts a couple of flags up for us to have a look at while we are stuck in the traffic. That is very helpful. 

Mr Koch -- They closed the lane on us. 

Mr FINN -- The government loves to close lanes. Do not get me started on VicRoads or we will be here all day and all night. The problem is that this government once again shows that it just does not care about the western suburbs, or indeed the west of the state, by its attitude to the West Gate Bridge and the West Gate Freeway. Every day the gridlock is getting further back. We had it back to Kororoit Creek Road a few years ago. Now it is back to Point Cook. Do we want it to go to Little River, to Lara, to Geelong? How bad does this traffic have to get before this government will actually do something? Does this government have any idea of what it is doing to the lives of thousands of Victorians as a result of it ignoring the problems on the West Gate? The West Gate is a sore that is not being addressed by the government, and that is a disgrace. The sooner this government realises that the West Gate has become a symbol of its neglect then maybe, just maybe, it might do something about it. Again, I will not be holding my breath.

Mr Koch -- Do not hold your breath.

Mr FINN -- I will not be holding my breath, Mr Koch, I can assure you. This is not quite on the same scale as the West Gate, but there is also an issue in Werribee that has been ongoing for some time; Mr Koch might be aware of this as well. It is the Cottrell Street issue at the railway gates and the bridge. This has been a matter of enormous fury -- I think that would be the word to describe it -- for thousands of people who live in Werribee, Wyndham Vale and surrounds.

Wyndham, depending on which day it is, could possibly be the fastest growing municipality in Australia. There are thousands of families moving to the city of Wyndham. If you speak to Mr Madden, in one breath he will tell you what a wonderful job the government is doing in opening up the Wyndham area to thousands of families who wish to move there, which is what it is doing. What he will not tell you is that the government is not providing the services and the infrastructure that these people need for a decent standard of living, and the Cottrell Street debacle is a classic example of what I am talking about.

Can I be so bold as to actually offer a suggestion that would not cost as much as might otherwise be the case. I suggest the government could extend the electrification of the railway line from Werribee to the racecourse.

If it electrified the line to the racecourse, the racecourse could become one big car park where people could park and get the train. It would take the traffic out of Werribee and away from Cottrell Street. Perhaps we will not then need to pour the money into Cottrell Street that is currently needed. The increasing numbers of people coming into Werribee and the surrounding areas -- the city of Wyndham -- will have a decent rail service. That is just a thought.

Mr Koch -- We have not got enough trains.

Mr FINN -- Mr Koch says we have not got enough trains. I know we do not have enough trains. Those of us who have stood on the station platforms of Hoppers Crossing, Werribee or Laverton -- any of those stations along there -- will know just how hard pressed, literally, one is to get onto those trains. You get to about 7 o'clock in the morning and you need those fat Japanese blokes to come along and push you onto a train.

Perhaps that is something that the government might like to consider. I hope the government will take the extension of the electrification to the Werribee racecourse into serious consideration. That would be a solution, or at least a major part of a solution, to a problem that has been ongoing in Werribee for a very long time.

For quite some time I have been very critical of the standard of health services in the western suburbs of Melbourne. Footscray hospital, I believe, is a disgrace. I do not believe anybody on the other side of Melbourne would tolerate for 1 minute the standard of service or the physical state of the Footscray hospital; it just would not be tolerated. We should not be expected to put up with this just because we are in the western suburbs, just because we are on our side of Melbourne. We should not be expected to put up with waiting around on trolleys for hours, perhaps even days, with major injuries. We should not be expected to put up with hospital buildings which are in an appalling state.

Their condition is almost Third World in some instances. We should not have to put up with that.

What we need in the western suburbs is again the sort of resources, the sort of funding, that people in the eastern suburbs have come to expect. I do not think that is unreasonable. I do not think that is an unfair way to look at things. Just because we live on our side of Melbourne does not mean that we should miss out on what people on the other side get. Health services are crucial to the sort of issue that I am talking about. In particular we are urgently in need of greater paediatric services in the west. At the moment there are very limited paediatric services and paediatric surgery options at the Sunshine Hospital. Many instances have been brought to my attention of late where children who were injured or who are ill have been taken to the Sunshine Hospital, only to then be put in an ambulance and shuttled off to the Royal Children's because the Sunshine Hospital just does not have the ability to cope.

That is just not good enough.

Again there are areas as far out as Melton, Caroline Springs, Werribee and Tarneit -- right through there -- that are growing by the day. These areas are growing because families are moving there, and families by their very definition bring children. If the health services are not there, kids are still going to get sick. If the health services are not there, then we have a real problem on our hands. This government just does not seem to care about that.

Just recently we heard -- I think it was in the budget -- that the Monash Medical Centre out in the eastern suburbs had been given many millions of dollars for what is basically a new children's hospital. Good luck to it for that, but we want the same in the west. We are not going to tolerate missing out any more. We have been ignored and neglected for too long. Enough! We will not put up with it any longer.

That is the message I bring to this house today. I hope Minister Madden is listening. I am hoping he will get that message through his thick scone: that we are not going to put up with being neglected any more. For the benefit of the record, as I talk about this government neglecting the western suburbs, Minister Madden is over there chortling away like the clown he is. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Elasmar) -- Order! Mr Finn -- --

Mr FINN -- I withdraw, Mr Acting President. It does not change the fact of the matter, but I withdraw nonetheless.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Elasmar) -- Order! I ask Mr Finn to withdraw politely and not qualify what he says.

Mr FINN -- I withdraw. People can draw their own conclusions -- in fact many already have.

It is extremely important for so many families in the west of Melbourne that we get proper health services for our children. It is not asking too much, is it, to expect proper and decent health care for our kids?

Mr Koch -- Fundamental.

Mr FINN -- It is fundamental, as Mr Koch says. That is what we want, that is what we need and that is what we are demanding. I am hoping, as the Treasurer enters the house, that he has heard what I have said here today and that he is listening to what I am saying about the need for the people of the western suburbs to receive the same treatment as those on the other side of Melbourne.

In the area of education, over the past few years I have been to a number of schools that I have to say were in pretty poor shape. Some of them were an absolute disgrace. I remember visiting Werribee Secondary College earlier this year or last year. It was like going back in time. I felt as if I had stepped into a time machine and gone back six or seven decades. Many of the school buildings were literally falling down and many of them were being held up with sticks.

It is just appalling the way this government has treated many of the schools in the western suburbs.

We heard last week about the office of the Minister for Energy and Resources, Peter Batchelor, so members know what happens to anybody who complains. Government members, with their Gestapo-like tactics, come down on you like a tonne of bricks. They will bully you, they will harass you and they will intimidate you, because that is the Labor way. That is the only way they know. They do not want anybody standing up for themselves. They do not want people saying, 'Hey, we want what is rightfully ours'. If anybody -- any school principal or any school community -- stands up and fights for what is rightfully theirs, God help them, as far as this government is concerned. As I say, that is the Labor way. It always has been, and I reckon there is a fair chance it always will be.

There are so many principals who are annoyed and distressed by the physical state of the schools they work in, but they cannot say anything because they know what will come their way if they do.

Mr Koch -- Julia will fix it.

Mr FINN -- Julia will not be there long enough to fix anything, let me tell you. I hope, Mr Koch, that the new Prime Minister enjoys today, because it might be her only day in Parliament as Prime Minister. If she calls the election for the end of August, it just might be her only day as Prime Minister in the Parliament. We can certainly look forward to that, anyway.

As I said, we have heard all the noise from both federal and state Labor Party members about all the money they have spent on education. I would like to know where it has gone.

It certainly has not gone into the western suburbs, but that is again not something that we should be entirely surprised about. I well remember that when we came to government back in 1992 there was a $600 million black hole in school maintenance that the Kirner government had left us.

I remember visiting schools. One was a school that I again represent now, the Gladstone Park Secondary College. I have related this if not to this house, certainly to another one in years gone by. It is not a small school; it is a fairly substantial school with a large school population. I recall going to that school and putting my foot through the floor and my hand through the walls and being shown the roof where wires were dangling down -- hopefully they were not live, but they might have been. I do not know; I did not find out. I certainly was not game enough to check it out myself. That was what the Kirner government left us, and that sort of thing is exactly what the Brumby government will leave us in November.

It is not good enough for a government whose members beat their chests and puff themselves out and say, 'Oh, we're so good. We put education and schools first and foremost'. It puts the lie to that, because we on this side know that is not so at all -- and they prove that every day.

Just recently I have raised the need for an autism-specific secondary school in the western suburbs. In the budget there is an announcement by the Treasurer that there will be funding for an autism-specific secondary school in the east -- it could be in Warrandyte. It is to be out that way. I get a bit lost when I get into the eastern suburbs, I have to say.

Mrs Petrovich -- You're a westie at heart.

Mr FINN -- I am a fair westie, Mrs Petrovich, I have to say. That school will be out in the eastern suburbs. The bottom line is that the people of the eastern suburbs who have the misfortune to have children with autism will be getting a secondary school for the eastern suburbs.

Hon. M. P. Pakula -- Ferntree Gully.

Mr FINN -- Ferntree Gully, is it? I thank the minister for his assistance. I knew it was out there somewhere.

The bottom line is, though, that we in the western suburbs have the Western Autistic School, which provides four years of education. Once the four years are up, the kids are kicked out and the parents have to work it out themselves. That is just not good enough. I am not speaking through self-interest -- I want to make that very clear -- because my son goes to the Northern School for Autism, and that is a P-12 school.

My little bloke is right as far as education goes, although there are other issues that I might relate at another stage.

In the western suburbs kids with autism have four years of education. That is just outrageous and appalling. We need an autism-specific secondary school in the western suburbs as a matter of urgency. We do not need it just today; we needed it last year. As I related to this house just a few weeks ago, lately I have spoken to parents -- and here we are coming to the end of June -- who do not know which school their children will be at next year. I know where my other children will be. My eldest girl is moving to a secondary school next year; I know where she will be. I think by the end of June every other member who is a parent would know where their children will be next year for secondary education, but not the parents of children with autism in the western suburbs.

If it is not bad enough for parents to be faced with the problem of having a child -- or children, quite often -- with autism, this is an added problem thrown in. There is a lack of educational facilities for them to go to.

If we are fair dinkum about caring for people, this has to be rectified. Autism is not going to go away. Autism is growing in numbers; every year it is growing in numbers, for whatever reason. That is one of the big problems with autism. We just do not know what causes it. We have no idea what causes it. Unfortunately that does not change the fact that it is growing in prevalence in the community. In places in the western suburbs where quite often, to be frank, a lot of parents do not have the physical resources to provide the sorts of services their children really need, they are facing the neglect of not having a secondary school at all.

In fact they are faced with the prospect of their children being put into a school for four years and then being turfed out and told to go to either a mainstream school, which in many cases -- certainly it would be the case with my son, if he were in that situation -- would not be an option, or to a special school, which in most instances is just not appropriate.

If the government were fair dinkum about social justice and looking after those in the community who really need to be looked after, it would provide an autism-specific secondary school for the western suburbs, and it would do it soon. In fact it would do it now. As I said in this house a couple of weeks ago, it is not something that we want; it is something that we need, and we need it desperately. I am hopeful that this government will take it on board and do something about it.

I want to make some brief comments about policing and law and order, particularly as they pertain to the western suburbs. I am not sure who I should feel more sorry for: members of the community who actually need a police officer after an incident or to prevent a crime from occurring or police who are working in extraordinary and intolerable conditions -- in conditions that neither you nor I nor anybody else in this building would put up with. From time to time we all have a whinge about various things such as our offices in this building and so forth, but they are almost palatial compared to some of the places police are forced to work in. Once again, I have to mention the Sunshine police station, which is horrendous; it is absolutely horrific. How anybody could expect people -- --

Mrs Petrovich interjected.

Mr FINN -- Yes, how anybody can expect people to work in such conditions, I do not know. The police at Sunshine are stressed, overworked and understaffed -- all the things you would not want people to be -- yet they go on and do the best job they possibly can. They are totally committed to protecting members of the community who need their protection. I take my hat off to those men and women of the Victorian police force on the front line who are out there protecting us. But they should not be subjected to the sorts of conditions they are subjected to by this government.

For at least a decade now the police in Werribee have been put under enormous stress as a result of being way understaffed. As I mentioned, the city of Wyndham is one of the fastest growing communities in Australia, but there is not the same degree of growth in police numbers. People are coming from everywhere into Wyndham, but the same number of police are expected to man the beat. Whilst we have a new Wyndham North police station -- and that is a very nice police station -- sadly, we do not have the police to keep it open for as long as it should be. I understand that this week the Werribee station has been closed for three days, without explanation. I do not know what is going on there. Perhaps we will find out at some stage. But that is the story of Werribee.

Mr Koch -- There are too many officers. They can't fit them in!

Mr FINN -- I have been to the Werribee station, and I do not think there are too many offices. They are pretty cramped there, I have to say. It is a pretty shocking place to be. The situation at Werribee with the lack of police has been ongoing for a long time. The government knows about it, but it does not care. It says, 'It's Werribee, don't worry about it. They'll vote for us anyway'. That is the government's attitude. It says, 'The western suburbs, don't worry about them. They'll vote for us anyway'. I am hopeful that will change very soon.

We have seen the problems with policing in Footscray, and they are ongoing. We have had the police station at Williamstown closed overnight because the police at Footscray need more officers. They pull them out of Williamstown and put them into Footscray, and then they pull them out of Footscray and put them into Werribee. We do not want musical-chair police officers. We want new police officers. We want police officers who will protect us and who are able to do the job they need to do. They need the resources and the authority to do their job. It is pretty basic. Any government that is worth its salt should provide to the police in this state the resources and the authority to do their job.

Irrespective of what is going on in the western suburbs, what Victoria Police needs more than anything else is some leadership. It has not had any decent leadership now for a very long time. We now have a police commissioner -- son of Christine, Simon Overland -- who perhaps knows even less about policing than his predecessor.

You would not have thought that was possible; a lot of people certainly did not think that was possible. But from my conversations with a good number of police officers, that is the case. He has not got a clue what he is doing. We have a police minister who would have to be the worst police minister in the history of this state. He is so hands off he might as well have no arms! He just does not know what he is doing.

Mrs Petrovich interjected.

Mr FINN -- He could be armless! He is just hopeless. When you go out and speak to the police on the front line and mention Bob Cameron's name, they just shake their heads and say, 'What have we done to deserve him?'. It is a very good question. We have had Christine Nixon for a decade, so we all know what she is like, and we now have Simon Overland, who knows even less about policing than she did.

We also have Bob Cameron, who just walks around in a daze and does not have a clue what is going on; he has no idea! They do not call him Sideshow Bob for nothing. He has absolutely no idea what is going on. That is of concern not just to police officers throughout the state but also to everybody who is worried about law and order in Victoria.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Somyurek) -- Order! I say to Mr Finn that referring to the minister as Sideshow Bob is clearly out of order and I ask him to withdraw.

Mr FINN -- I do apologise, Acting President. I was not actually referring to him. I was referring to others who call him that on a daily basis.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Somyurek) -- Order! Will Mr Finn withdraw?

Mr FINN -- On behalf of every police officer in Victoria, I withdraw.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Somyurek) -- Order! Mr Finn has to withdraw.

Mr FINN -- I withdraw.

Mrs Petrovich -- They might not.

Mr FINN -- Mrs Petrovich is spot on the money. I am sure they would not. I said I would not speak for long, and I may have got that wrong.

We really need something in Victoria Police which will restore the values that Victoria Police once had. I have said this before, I will say it now and I will no doubt say it again and again: when I was growing up, Victoria Police was held in high esteem.

It disturbs and distresses me enormously when I see opinion polls showing that the majority of Victorians no longer have faith in Victoria Police. We need to restore the values that Victoria Police once held and stood for. We need to give police officers the authority, the respect and the resources to do their job. That is most important.

I will finish with a simple message to the government on behalf of the people of the western suburbs of Melbourne: we want our share. We pay taxes, too, in the western suburbs of Melbourne. We work, we pay our tax, we want our fair share. We are sick to death of budget after budget where all the goodies go to the eastern suburbs, the south-eastern suburbs or over the other side of town. Enough is enough. We want our share.

This budget has failed the western suburbs yet again -- the western suburbs that put Labor back every election. The western suburbs is just taken for granted. That is the problem. The Labor government says, 'They are going to vote for us anyway. We do not have to give them a cent'. So it does not. However, after speaking to a lot of people out in the west over the last couple of years, I think that might be coming to an end -- not too soon, I might say. The people of the western suburbs are finally realising that as long as they continue to vote Labor without question, they will continue to get nothing from this government and from the Labor Party generally. They realise that John Brumby does not care about the western suburbs.

Nobody in the Labor Party cares about the western suburbs. Nobody in the Labor Party has ever cared about the western suburbs, and quite frankly people in the western suburbs have had enough. Come 27 November we are going to see a different attitude from a lot of people in the western suburbs. That 13 per cent swing in Altona earlier this year might be the start of things to come.

We might see this government, courtesy of the people of the western suburbs, go the same way Kevin Rudd has just gone. The people of the western suburbs deserve and need a fair go. I am committed to ensuring that they get that. I am committed to ensuring that their voice is heard. I am committed to ensuring that as long as this government is over there, it will be reminded of the neglect it has inflicted upon the people of the western suburbs of Melbourne.

Debate interrupted.