Legislative Council Electronic Petition

The Petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Council that Victoria’s famous music scene is on the brink of collapse and there is no relief in sight. We are calling on the Government to step in and save our proud music culture by preserving the venues where artists play. Live music means mass gatherings and it will be many months before our state’s music venues can safely reopen doors at viable capacities. In the meantime, our venues are being crippled by mounting...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:15): I am really pleased to speak on the Review of the Medically Supervised Injecting Room, which probably comes as no surprise to many of you in here, given my long interest in this. I must say that for many of us the announcement in this report for a second injecting room was more of a relief than a surprise. The report found that the North Richmond centre is becoming one of the busiest in the world. It is twice as busy as the Sydney centre, which really shocked me. It...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:13): I am very pleased to stand up to speak to the Wildlife Rescue Victoria Bill 2020. Again, it is a crossbench bill that is borne out of the passion of the person who brought it to the house. This is a bill that really exemplifies why Mr Meddick is in this place today. It is the reason why he was elected by his supporters, and I am very pleased to support this bill.

As we have heard, amongst other things it coordinates wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and relief as part...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (10:43): I rise to support this motion, I think echoing the previous members, with a great degree of sadness, a great degree of disappointment. When I also watched this unfolding on television and then in the newspapers the next day, sadly I was not surprised and sadly I do not think the Victorian public was surprised—shocked, maybe, by the language, shocked that this was exposed but not surprised that it was happening, not surprised at all. That is why we often hear the disdain that our community has for politicians.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:22): I am very pleased that this bill has finally made it to this house. I have to say it was nine months ago—almost exactly, which is a lovely coincidence—that I put the amendment up to remove the police checks from this legislation, and as the minister said at the time, this was going to happen and it was going to happen quickly—and nine months later we are seeing it happen. I am actually very pleased about this.

I must say: in listening to Ms Maxwell previously my heart...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:14): I welcome and am thankful for having the opportunity to speak about a four-day work week trial. We know during COVID we have been doing so many things differently, and for some of us that has been a struggle. I know for many people working from home or not having work at all has been really, really, very difficult. But we have been doing things that have been working, and we have learned how to work more flexibly. We have learned that we can work at home.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (11:06): I rise to speak to Ms Maxwell’s motion. It is interesting following the opposition and the government both kind of touting that they have done better than the other, and I would have to say that I do not think either of them have done well in addressing the growing problems that our justice system is facing and preventing people entering into our justice system. I think that is where we have absolutely tragically failed our community, our young people and even, as Mr O’Donohue said, the parents of young people who...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:34): I am pleased to speak to the bill, for what will probably be a $16 billion 26-kilometre freeway that will be expected to open in six or seven years. Certainly Dr Ratnam and I are acutely aware of that and our constituents are certainly speaking to us considerably. But I will not use this contribution to speak about the road itself. I think I will stick to the task at hand, which is the toll.

  Ms Patten: I rise to speak (metaphorically) to this cognate debate. As a state, we entered this financial year with strong growth, retail trade, employment and construction; and as the best performing economy in the country, buoyed really, by construction levels 25 percent above average. Beyond anyone’s control, we were met by devastating bushfires, at great human, emotional and financial cost – approximately $600 million to the state’s bottom line. And then COVID-19, which has had, and will continue to have, a truly unprecedented impact on people’s lives and economies around the world. As the Premier stated yesterday, hundreds of thousands of Victorians will...

  Ms PATTEN: I would like to rise in favour of this amendment. It is imperfect and I do not think that it actually solves some of the issues that we have been raising throughout the day, and in actual fact throughout the last few weeks, in trying to find a way for independent scrutiny of some of the very big decisions that are being made. I take this point again to congratulate the government on many of the ways that they have responded to this, and the outcome is the result of that. However, without that scrutiny we cannot see what...