MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:46:47) — I rise to make a contribution on this largely omnibus bill. As previous speakers have gone through all of the various wideranging areas of this bill, I will not, although I will just give a shout-out to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, which was very pleased to see that some of the issues around ensuring that vendors pay commissions owed to real estate agents are remedied in this bill. Sadly, though, they were disappointed that it was in a bill about mandatory sentencing, which is what I will focus my contribution on. I have to say that...

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:17:59) — I too would like to make a brief contribution to Mr Elasmar's motion to amendment the standing orders and Ms Pennicuik's amendments to that motion as well. I come from a position where I do not really know Parliament without the existing sessional orders that we have had, and I have to say that I have thought that many of them have been quite good. At other times I have been completely frustrated in here by the delays and by the continuation of unnecessary debate. In some ways I would like to have seen more being done to address...

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (12:18:47) — I too would like to commend this report and also again thank all of the staff from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, both present and past. I have to say that I think this report is an incredibly good, concise report. It very well depicts the work of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. I kind of wish that this report had been available to me when I came onto that committee. I would have had a much clearer understanding of how the committee operated. But having said that, I learnt an awful lot on...

MS PATTEN — I do support this amendment because I really do support the community health sector, and I support the fact that they have had a portable long service leave program for a number of years. This bill — and I think it was unintended — does overlap on that and does give them a quite incredible level of extra work that money needs to be put aside for. These are organisations that have very slim budgets, and they do remarkable work for our community. Certainly the ones in Northern Metropolitan Region and around Victoria do remarkable work in primary health and...

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:02:32) — I rise to briefly speak on the Prevention of Family Violence Bill 2018. As previous speakers have said, this is a new principle-based approach to family violence and, most importantly, to the prevention of family violence. We know that inequality is one of the causes of family violence. We know that a lack of respect is one of the causes not only of family violence but of violence in our community, so I am very pleased to support this bill. I am very pleased that this bill and the establishment of Respect Victoria is entirely about prevention...

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:18:26) — I will make a brief contribution to the debate on the Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2018. As others have mentioned, the bill reforms the legislative framework for the protection of the environment and human health from pollution and waste. What the bill fundamentally does is shift the focus of the Environment Protection Act 1970 to prevention. I would have thought that this was quite natural. I suppose that prior to coming to this place and learning so many things, I would have just assumed that environmental protection meant prevention, but this bill really does fundamentally look...

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:39:28) — I move: That the Council take note of the report. I encourage everyone to have a look at this report, Inquiry into Civics and Electoral Participation in Victorian State Parliamentary Elections. We are still finding increased informal voting in Victoria, we are finding a decrease in youth electoral participation and generally we are finding less interest in the parliamentary process in Victoria. This has been an ongoing issue and is certainly something that the Electoral Matters Committee has considered over the last few years, whether it has been in the general review of the 2014 election or in our...

This speech was not read as Fiona's duties as deputy acting President precluded her from contributing to the debate. I rise to make a short contribution to this Bill. A Bill that amends the Environment Protection Act 2017 to establish a container deposit scheme for Victoria in order to promote recovery, reuse and recycling of empty beverage containers. A container deposit scheme has the support of a significant Majority of Victorians (84 per cent). It is a concept long familiar to South Australia and is commencing in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. As Mr Davis mentioned earlier, it was even a...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:27:53) — As promised I will speak very briefly on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2018. I have been listening to the debate in my office with great interest. If this bill is passed, it will allow for terrorism subjects to be detained and questioned for four days without charge. It extends the preventative detention scheme to 14-year-olds, it changes shoot-to-kill provisions and it creates presumptions against parole, amongst other things. Ms Pennicuik and certainly Mr O'Donohue went into great detail on the bill, and I appreciated that as well as the second-reading speech in the lower house. I appreciate...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:27:55) — I would like to take the opportunity of speaking in the third-reading debate of the Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill 2018. I do find it somewhat surprising to think that the coalition has been so morally opposed and adamant about their opposition to this bill when there was no doubt that there was complete support from the coalition for the increase in funding to their parties. One only has to read the second-reading speeches in the other house to gather that. In fact from a small party perspective I actually felt that we were completely locked out...