Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:23): It gives me no pleasure to get up to speak on this bill. I must say I do get quite disturbed when we do this in this chamber. This is not the first time we have done this, but certainly I think I am more troubled by this circumstance where we are dismissing a council than I have been in previous cases. When I have read the reports in previous cases I have seen some systemic problems with those organisations. In this report that we only received this morning the monitor clearly states...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (11:08): I am very pleased to rise to speak in favour of Mr Davis’s motion to hold a regional sitting. As has been mentioned by previous speakers, the crossbench have also been talking about what we can do to support the regional areas and what we can do to learn directly from people from regional areas the issues that are important to them. I am from the city, but I have a country property. Before Christmas I travelled up through Gippsland and saw the preparations for what turned out to be some of the worst fires we have...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (16:39): I would just like to rise to make a small contribution to the Melbourne Strategic Assessment (Environment Protection Mitigation Levy) Bill 2019. This bill effectively is trying to legislate what has been practised in policy for the last decade or so using the old Melbourne strategic assessment, and that is something that was done conjunctly with the commonwealth and the state. For the most part people think it has been operating relatively well. I do not think it has been operating as well as people had expected, and it seems the legislation may well sort of...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (19:09): I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

In Victoria, right now, there are around 11 000 children unable to live with their parents, and find themselves in the statutory care of the state. That is, their legal guardian or parent is the government.

This may be the result of violence in the home, or issues with mum or dad’s mental health.

Most of these children are living in foster or kinship care, but around 6 per cent live in residential or group homes.

Currently...

 

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (13:16): I am very pleased to join in this condolence motion today. John Cain—member for Bundoora; Labor leader; three-term Premier; husband to Nancye; father to John, James and Joanne; grandfather and great-grandfather—was a true son of Northern Metropolitan. His father, the 34th Premier, was a long-serving member for Jika Jika, later named Northcote, and his mother a successful businesswoman with a string of millinery stores throughout the north. As a child he ran through the schoolyards of Bell Primary, he spent many years at the historic Northcote High School and of course the University...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:17): On behalf of the Reason Party I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the recent bushfires across our state, the men who were defending us and died in that service, David Moresi, Mat Kavanagh and Bill Slade, and the beloved community members, Fred Becker and Mick Roberts.

I have so enjoyed hearing, and feel privileged to have heard, from my colleagues here in this house, who have told us more about these men, and I have learned more about...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:10:34): I would very much like to rise and speak to this motion that was brought to the house by the crossbench, by Mr Meddick. World AIDS Day has been commemorated in this country since 1988, and I have been commemorating it since that day. In 1989 Darren Hook was my first friend to die of HIV and AIDS, and since then I have seen many of my friends die. At the end I was not going to funerals. In those days it was a death sentence, and you would almost rather not know....

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:50:01): I am very pleased to rise to speak to Mr Limbrick’s motion. It is a very simple one, and I am somewhat disappointed that neither the government nor the opposition would support a very simple call to just evaluate what we are doing. This is not saying to stop sniffer dogs and it is not saying to roll out more, it is just saying let us evaluate it. That was recommendation 50 of the Law Reform, Road and Community Safety Committee’s recommendations in the previous Parliament. That committee had a consensus report. We did...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (10:29): I lay on the table a statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006:  

In accordance with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (the charter), I make this statement of compatibility with respect to the Crimes Amendment (Abolition of Blasphemy) Bill 2019. In my opinion, the Bill, as introduced to the Legislative Council, is compatible with human rights as set out in the charter. I base my opinion on the reasons outlined in this statement.

Overview

of bill The purpose of the Crimes...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:59:34): I too rise to speak to the Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Bill 2019. As many other speakers before me have noted and outlined, it amends the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 to introduce a new criminal offence of workplace manslaughter. The bill aims to hold organisations and individual officers to account where they engage in negligent conduct causing the death of a worker or a member of the public. In doing so these laws are designed to pierce that corporate veil. I have considered these reforms closely. I...