Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action I seek is for the minister to meet with the Inner North Community Foundation to discuss the open space activation fund.

President, when times are tough, communities in the north come together.

The Inner North Community Foundation is an independent charity and grant maker for Melbourne’s north, covering the communities of Yarra, Darebin and Moreland, and I have mentioned them numerous times in this place.

Their fantastic work in funnelling large sums of philanthropic money into meaningful community projects is inspirational during normal times. However, during COVID, it has been simply astounding.

INCF raised $460 000 in two months, giving 50 rapid response grants and $260 000 worth of small grants to local charities and community groups, bolstering the community’s response to the COVID crisis.

Executive officer Ben Rodgers is passionate about everything that makes these communities thrive and has been trying for a number of months to pitch the idea of a Bell to Moreland open space activation fund to the Level Crossing Removal Authority, so far without success.

As we have seen from other level crossing removal projects, the raising of the Upfield line will connect our communities, creating a new space that parks, walking and cycling paths, playgrounds and other shared spaces will fill.

INCF wants to spend money where it will have impact, and I can think of no greater impact than to have local charities and community groups playing an active role in transforming this corridor and filling it with meaningful and community-minded spaces that they know will be used and loved.

If the community get buy-in, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership and contribute towards the maintenance of these areas, potentially reducing some of the financial burden on councils and government organisations like VicTrack.

After reaching out to the Level Crossing Removal Authority repeatedly since late last year, their lack of response may have given Mr Rodgers some sympathy for Icy Pole salesmen in Antarctica. For some reason, he can’t seem to get a simple yes or no out of anyone.

I implore the minister to seriously consider the benefits of such a fund in not just the creation of some of these spaces but in the long-term use and maintenance of them.

The action I seek is for the minister to meet with the Inner North Community Foundation to discuss the possibilities of an open space activation fund for the Bell to Moreland rail corridor and to seriously consider the proposal.

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment 4/8/20

Response:

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for the Coordination of Transport: COVID-19):

I thank the Member for Northern Metropolitan Region for her question and continued interest in the Andrews Labor Government’s transport infrastructure agenda across Melbourne’s north as well as our level crossing removal program.

This $542.4 million project is getting rid of four dangerous and congested level crossings at Bell Street, Munro Street and Reynard Street in Coburg, and Moreland Road in Brunswick.

The Government made an election commitment to remove these level crossings with an elevated rail solution and work is currently underway as part of the current construction blitz.

On top of reducing congestion and improving safety, the designs will create a green, open area almost twice the size of the MCG for locals to come together, exercise and enjoy.

The project will deliver a bigger and better Moreland Station precinct and will feature barbecue facilities, a nature playground, extensive planting and landscaped gardens.

A dog park, playgrounds, and public art spaces are among some of the ideas that were considered for the 2.5 kilometres of new open space. Three times as many trees will also be planted as part of the project.

The Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP) has consulted with locals and will continue to do so regarding what the open space will look like when the project is completed in 2021. I am also advised that LXRP representatives have met with the local organisation mentioned in your question.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (22:30): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Creative Industries, and the action I seek is for him to approve the Save our Scene proposal to rescue live music by providing a fund to support the relaunching of the industry when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. The proposal is simple: it is to implement a live music support package, which would include a needs-based financial assistance program to support small- to medium-size enterprise music venues until they are able to trade sustainably and to put in place a clear and balanced road map to reopen at full capacity.

Now, I know, President, you love music—I have heard you sing. And I do as well—not myself singing, of course. But our live music in Victoria is worth $1.4 billion. There was some—

Mr Bourman interjected.

Ms PATTEN: Yes, I promise I will not sing in verse; I promise, Mr Bourman. But live music is worth $1.4 billion to our Victorian economy. Every Saturday night over 100 000 Victorians attend live music venues—or, to use the state’s correct unit of measurement, one MCG’s worth. But with COVID restrictions, mass gatherings cannot happen; it will be many months before live music venues can open. But while the gigs have stopped, the rest has not: the mortgage repayments, the rent, the insurance, the licensee fees. The debts are mounting, and many venues are struggling to survive. If these venues close, Victoria’s night-time economy will shut down. We will lose tourists from here and overseas. We will lose our status as the most important cultural destination—one of the most important cultural destinations—in the world.

Mr Davis: No, the most important.

Ms PATTEN: All right, let us leave it at ‘the most important cultural destination’. The government’s stimulus spending has been enormous, and live music is only asking for a small amount. We are looking at around $20 million, and that is to ensure that a $1.4 billion industry stays alive, so I urge the minister to approve the Save our Scene proposal.

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter raised 18/6/20

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (23:34): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and the action I am seeking is for her to instruct Victoria Police to immediately introduce a racial profile monitoring system.

We know that it has been three years since Victoria Police stated that they would introduce a monitoring system to check the level of racial profiling in police activities, but they have not. The research points to the fact that they are stopping people because of the colour of their skin, and we know that there is no doubt that that is linked to the increased levels of incarceration of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters and Aboriginal children in our community as well as other people of colour.

Police now record a variety of data when they stop someone, when they interact, and that will include the reason for the stop, the location, the time and the outcome. Racial monitoring would make it mandatory to include the perceived race or ethnicity. It would not be a requirement for the police to ask those people about that, just for them to identify what the ethnicity was that they think. We know that research from Canada and the UK has shown that these types of racial monitoring systems immediately reduce the number of unnecessary stops as they make officers reflect on whether the person’s race played a part in their decision to stop them. With this data VicPol can work towards reducing racial profiling in police and improve transparency.

This is a call that has been going for a number of years. As I say, the police said they would do it three years ago. Acting Chief Commissioner Andrew Crisp in 2017 told the Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre that Victoria Police would incorporate racial profiling as part of their transparency and accountability monitoring group, but they have not. We know in New South Wales where this type of profiling is monitored that the COVID-19 fines disproportionately affected our Aboriginal communities, but here we just do not know because we are not measuring it.

Look, the government could be doing so many things this week to reflect on the actions that our community took—the outbursts, the outrage, the outpouring of sympathy—around the deaths in custody and around the deaths of black people that we saw in America. They could be removing public drunkenness as an offence, they could be conducting an audit into the recommendations, but the action I seek is a simple one: that they immediately start collecting data on the race and ethnicity of the people they stop.

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter 16/6/20

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:28): My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Housing, and I am seeking a meeting between him, me, Housing All Australians and Quest Apartments. With the growing number of families that we are seeing at risk of homelessness as a result of COVID, Housing All Australians, Quest Apartments and the Salvation Army have joined forces to provide temporary accommodation for those at risk of homelessness or who are experiencing it. It has been great seeing Quest Apartments providing the Salvation Army with temporary accommodation at a break-even rate—there is no profit in this. These are the sorts of partnerships that I think we can be proud to endorse and proud to support, pulling together corporates like Quest to offer a safe, supportive place for vulnerable members of our society, and they make a huge difference to people in these tough times.

But I have been speaking to a number of people—and I am sure others have had people call them—who are experiencing homelessness and have been assisted. Many of them have been housed—and gratefully so—in hotels, small motels and backpacker facilities.

Everyone is grateful that they have a roof over their heads, but this is not a home. There are no washing facilities, there are no kitchen facilities, and they are constantly at risk of not knowing how long that place is going to be available for them.

But what we do know is that the Quest and serviced apartments around Victoria are not going to be full anytime soon, so these types of arrangements with service providers like the Salvos, Housing All Australians and corporates like Quest or Oaks can provide that short-term accommodation that people need to get on their feet—for six to 12 months provide services and provide a whole range of things that wrap around and enable people to live a life that has some dignity and some stability.

The action that I am seeking is for the Minister for Housing to join me in a meeting with Housing All Australians, Quest apartments and key representatives as soon as possible to investigate fully how these programs can add to our response. We know that the government is doing a lot of work in trying to provide housing. They are looking at a task force, they are looking at how we can provide stimulus into social housing and build-to-rent et cetera, but this is a pop-up solution that is here right now and will meet the needs of this ever-growing group of people who are experiencing homelessness in Victoria.

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter raised 3/5/20

 

Ms Patten: My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Higher Education in this place and the action I seek is for the Minster to investigate the state government support options for international students.

The international education sector has warned that Australia is putting at risk one of its largest industries if it does not do more to help foreign students through the Covid19 crisis.

The International Education Association of Australia has called for a hardship fund for foreign students, many who have lost their jobs as the pandemic ravages the retail and hospitality sectors.

Given the industry is worth 39 billion dollars annually to the country, some 13.5 billion of that spent in Victoria, it would therefore follow that we owe these students who contribute so much to our state, some form of help during the Covid19 crisis.

As the IEAA has noted, not only do these students pay expensive tuition fees, as well as spending on things such as rent, food, entertainment and alike, many also have low-skilled and part time jobs

Currently these international students and other temporary visa holders have been told to return to their home countries if they were unable to support themselves.

With universities and private colleges already reeling from a collapse in revenue, the situation is likely to worsen later in the year when international students traditionally enroll in big numbers.

International students are not eligible for federal government welfare or for the new JobSeeker and JobKeeper schemes. Many have lost their jobs and their homes, or live in fear of both.

Education Minister Dan Tehan has said that the government would work with universities and the international education sector to find “innovative ways to support international students” – which is about as clear as mud.

I ask the Minister for Higher Education to urgently review what state government support options for she can make available International Students as soon as is possible.

 

Fiona Patten MP

Leader of Reason

Member for Northern Metropolitan Region

Adjournment 23/4/20

Answer

 

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (19:16): My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and it also relates to the use of facial recognition technology and biometric identity systems, but the action I am seeking is for the minister to conduct an audit of Victoria Police to ascertain which officers have access to facial recognition technology. So while Mr Quilty’s adjournment matter was directed to the Special Minister of State, I believe this is actually something that is of importance to the minister for police as well.

As was recently revealed, Australian police agencies, including the Victorian police, are using a private, unaccountable facial recognition service called Clearview AI. As we know, the system combines machine learning and wideranging data-gathering practices to identify members of the public from online photographs. It is effectively a reverse-image search for faces. Lots of questions surround this, and certainly Mr Quilty talked about this as well, but we do have to raise the questions of whether it is ethical, if it is a breach of an individual’s privacy and probably, more importantly, if it is even accurate.

Victoria Police, until recently, have denied that they were using the service. However, Clearview AI’s customer list was stolen and it was then released, and it was revealed that the Victorian police were in fact using it. It is unclear whether the top brass of the Victorian police have sanctioned the use of this technology, because Clearview offers free trials to active law enforcement personnel, so we assume anyone with a police email address can have access to it.

So if the police in Victoria are going to use powerful surveillance technologies such as Clearview AI, there must be systems in place for ensuring its use in an accountable way. So I ask for the minister to conduct a thorough audit of Victoria Police to ascertain which offices and how many have access to facial recognition technology and what they are using it for.

 

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment 18/3/20

 

 

Answer

 

 

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:33): My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, and the action I seek is for the minister to halt all eviction proceedings in Victoria during the state of emergency.

As more and more of public life in Victoria shuts down—schools, events, bars, restaurants, swimming pools—and the economic ripple effects of the coronavirus epidemic widen, a growing number of jurisdictions across the globe are moving to protect people from becoming homeless.

In the United States, cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Boston, as well as a number of states including New York, Massachusetts and Kentucky, have temporarily halted eviction proceedings. These measures are now being adopted in other cities in Europe.

If a worker loses their job or if their take-home pay is significantly reduced because of something out of their control, how do they pay the rent? We cannot simply rely on landlords to be the good guys in this situation. Of course, there is a knock-on effect to the property owner, and I understand that. Landlords often rely on rental payments to service their mortgage.

However, a number of major Australian financial institutions have come forward to say that they will work with customers who are having mortgage payment problems. The risk is real. People will become homeless as a result of coronavirus, and the minister can and rightfully should step in.

So I ask the minister to mandate that all eviction proceedings in Victoria during the state of emergency be halted so that some of the most vulnerable in our community can get some peace of mind.

 

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter raised 17/3/20

 

 

Answer

 

 

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:02): My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Corrections, and the action I seek is for him to fund the Keeping Women Out of the Justice System community of practice, and this is supported by the Victorian Legal Services Board.

I am sure that the minister is well aware of the work that this group of organisations does, and it is very good work, but let us not forget that between 2006 and 2016 the women’s prison population in Victoria increased by 75 per cent.

From the Ombudsman’s report in 2015 we found that the number of women in prison doubled compared to the rate of the male prison population. The jump in the number of Aboriginal women prisoners is incredibly stark: a 240 per cent increase in Victorian prisoners, in Victorian Aboriginal women. The remand numbers here are incredibly high.

Corrections Victoria data indicates that in 2017, 39 per cent of all women prisoners were unsentenced, so nearly 40 per cent had not been sentenced at that time. Changes to bail and parole laws are exacerbating this growth in prison numbers. Let us just remember that very few of these women are in there for serious violent crimes.

The Keeping Women Out of the Justice System community of practice have made a funding submission to the government that gives the sad numbers I have just mentioned. Some of the key areas of their submission are to fund early intervention programs and partnerships in order to save on downstream costs; the creation of a specialist women’s list; and the expansion of work development permits scheme.

I have seen firsthand some of this work. I have met with some of the mentors that grab them early. When a woman is first making touches, is hitting the edge of the justice system, they send in mentors that help them navigate some of the more difficult parts of life that some people, particularly people from disadvantaged backgrounds, are struggling with.

Being on a homelessness inquiry, it is no surprise to me that to keep people out of prison we need to provide homes—so there is a request for an increase in homelessness services—and to ensure that people experiencing mental illness get the support they need. I have seen the minister at the women’s prison, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, and I know that he understands this issue. I just implore him to consider fully funding the Keeping Women Out of the Justice System community of practice.

Fiona Patten MP

Leader of Reason

Member for Northern Metropolitan Region

Adjournment matter 19/2/20

 

 

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (20:50): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action is confirmation of funding for the Epilepsy Foundation. As we approach International Epilepsy Day on Monday, 10 February, I would really like to acknowledge the great work undertaken by the Epilepsy Foundation in supporting the 60 000 people living with epilepsy in Victoria.

I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge that, had it not been for the Epilepsy Foundation, I do not think medicinal cannabis would be where it is in Australia. Their work and their advocacy in that area have been simply brilliant.

I would also like to acknowledge the Epilepsy Smart Schools program developed by the Epilepsy Foundation. This is a world’s best practice program that is now being delivered across Australia by the Epilepsy Foundation’s partner organisations and is a wonderful example of a Victorian organisation leading the way.

At this stage there is no funding or support agreement in place past the end of this financial year for the Epilepsy Foundation’s programs. This is a cause, not surprisingly, of great uncertainty to the community of Victorians living with epilepsy. I urge the minister to confirm that the Victorian government will continue to provide funding for the Epilepsy Foundation’s programs in the next financial year.

 

Fiona Patten MP

Leader of Reason

Member of Northern Metropolitan Region

Adjournment matter raised 5/2/20

 

Answer

 

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:13:33): My adjournment matter is for the Special Minister for State, and the action I am seeking is an independent judicial inquiry.

As the minister would be aware, the IBAC Committee last year inquired into, considered and reported on—and I believe that the minister who is here today, Minister Symes, was on that committee—the external oversight and investigation of police corruption and misconduct in Victoria and made 69 sweeping recommendations.

IBAC have said that they are actually stumped to do this—they lack the resources. This is why I am calling for a judicial inquiry. We heard just this week that two victims of a police shooting were awarded $3 million. This is a case that went for two years.

These two people are lucky to have survived the shooting at Inflation nightclub, where one was shot in the back and the other was shot in the leg. Dale Ewins now has a colostomy bag, and Zita Sukys will never, ever recover from what happened. Yet after two years of the police defending their actions in the courts and the court finding that their actions were not responsible and that their actions were breaching on misconduct—and the two victims were awarded $3 million—it now becomes clear that the police have never actually investigated the incident themselves.

They said, ‘No, we can’t investigate it because it’s under investigation within the courts’. This is just ridiculous.

The police did not investigate them nearly fatally killing two people. Fifty police swarmed into this nightclub, nearly killing two people and traumatising the staff of the Inflation nightclub.

I met with the owner of Inflation, Martha Tsamis, and she has gone through hoops. She has had to defend her reputation, she has had to defend her relationships and she has had to defend herself for years and years against the police, and now the police say they are not going to investigate themselves.

Given the seriousness of this matter and the failure of Victoria Police to heed the calls of the Premier and IBAC to investigate the shootings, I request that the minister urgently establishes an independent judicial inquiry.

 

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter 27/11/19