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...

 

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...

  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...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:29:59): My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Planning, Minister Wynne, and the action I seek is for his office to urgently move to protect the heritage buildings and trees at risk due to the level crossing removals in my area. In August I called on the Minister for Transport Infrastructure to meet directly with residents to hear their concerns about the proposed demolition of the historic signal boxes and the removal of trees at Gandolfo Gardens due to the Level Crossing Removal Project works in the Coburg area. I also requested that the minister ensure...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:01:41): My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Priority Precincts, and it concerns Docklands Central Pier. The action I seek is for the minister to urgently provide support for the businesses and the employees at the pier. As many of you know, the pier was shut down urgently overnight on 28 August. That was two months ago. Development Victoria has refused to share any information with the tenants there. They actually met with them on the 27th and did not mention that there were any concerns, and then on the 28th they were closed down...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (20:08:44): My adjournment matter tonight is directed to the Minister for Education and concerns the group Body Safety Australia. The action I seek is for the minister to increase funding to the program so it can be extended to regional areas. Body Safety Australia is a social enterprise that protects children from sexual abuse. The group uses evidence-based strategies to provide age-appropriate sexual abuse prevention education to students, parents and teachers. It is worth noting some facts about child sexual abuse. One in five children will experience childhood sexual abuse. On average children need to disclose five times before they...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:07:21): My adjournment matter today is for the Premier, and it concerns further allegations—even more allegations—of illegal behaviour at Crown Casino. These allegations have been made by former staff and whistleblowers within the regulator, the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation. The action I seek is for the Premier to urgently establish an inquiry to investigate these allegations and the many others that have come before. On Monday I joined federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie in Canberra as we released video testimony from a former Crown employee detailing instances where he had witnessed activity such as the abuse of...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:03:18): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence. It could have been equally directed to the Minister for Crime Prevention or the Minister for Mental Health as it relates to the Jesuit Social Services Men’s Project and the response to recommendations from the family violence royal commission. The Jesuit Social Services’ Men’s Project has, not surprisingly to anyone, recognised and identified that we have a problem, and we have a problem with our men and boys. It is not all of them by any means, but nine out of 10 of our prisoners...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:58:40): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Planning. There is a 91-year-old signal box near Coburg train station—it is on Munro Street—and it is set to be demolished to make way for sky rail. It was built in 1928; in fact it replaced an earlier box that was built there in 1892—127 years ago. The Level Crossing Removal Project team has applied to Heritage Victoria to demolish the box, which has an interim protection order, and claims that building around the box would set the project back up to $10 million—a figure I just do not...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:10:44): My adjournment matter today is for the Minister for Mental Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately introduce a hydromorphone trial as part of the medically supervised injecting centre. Part of this is that I just want to read the following poem, which was written by a user of the MSIC who recently died. His grief-stricken father, who would rather not be named here today, wrote to me to thank me and colleagues across the Parliament for supporting the injecting room—and to support a hydromorphone trial.   There is a great place us...