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...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (10:58): I would like to rise in support of Dr Ratnam’s motion. These are uncertain times, and I think scrutiny and transparency is paramount to this. I would like to open by also acknowledging the information that the government has been providing on a daily basis and acknowledging the very detailed information. I personally—and certainly I share it with my constituents—appreciate that. But with due respect, to say that a government-led committee such as the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee can provide that independent, transparent democracy that our community wants and deserves I think is somewhat disingenuous. Certainly...

  I rise today to speak (metaphorically) to the Covid-19 Omnibus Bill. President, never has Victoria faced a challenge of the likes of this. This is, as so many have said, is unprecedented in living memory. Before I turn my attention to the specifics of this emergency bill, can I take the time to thank those on the front line of this crisis… The doctors, nurses and support staff in hospitals and clinics all over Victoria who are facing this challenge head on. As well as the army of aged care workers who are backed up by cleaners, security guards and administrative staff...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (10:31): I would like to rise to speak to support this motion; it is quite complicated for one day of sitting. To find the support and the collaboration of over 11 different parties in this, I think, was very good work and was very good collaboration. Most importantly, as Dr Ratnam mentioned, it includes a resumption of Parliament, because I know that our constituents and Victorians as a whole would like to be seeing the Parliament sitting probably more and not less during this time of crisis. The scrutiny in uncertain times, when people are feeling very...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (18:03): I rise with some disappointment and sadness to speak to this bill. It is rushed. I do not feel that the report is actually as compelling as other reports that we have seen when we have been asked to sack an elected government, to sack 11 elected representatives. In fact the report goes to great lengths to tell us that all 11 representatives did not act badly, did not bring the council into disrepute. In fact it was just a few. The monitor does not go to name who they were, but he certainly does...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:09): I am very pleased to rise to speak on this important issue. Following on from Ms Terpstra, I just want to correct a couple of things. This motion does not suggest that vaping is completely safe. This motion in fact says that it is ‘not without risks’, but it says it is a damn sight—well it does not say damn sight—but it says it is ‘certainly far safer than smoking’. In fact the London college of physicians, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and Public Health England all attest to the fact that while vaping...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:32): I am very pleased to speak on Mr Quilty’s motion, and I have to say, for a man who is normally brief, this is not the briefest of motions. It almost speaks for itself in the facts that it lays out within the motion and really paints a very sad picture, particularly of Victoria Police. This is a picture that was painted by Victoria Police themselves. This was a survey of the police and it is their concerns, and I think it is those concerns that I would like to focus on today. But we know,...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:27): I rise to speak briefly to the Health Services Amendment (Mandatory Vaccination of Healthcare Workers) Bill 2020. As previous members have said, this enables the secretary to direct public hospitals, health service establishments, ambulance services and those employees to be required to be vaccinated or prove immunity to certain specified diseases. I think for the most part the community already assumes that that takes place. I think the community would be quite surprised that hepatitis, for example, was not already mandated for our healthcare workers. Certainly I recall when I started working at the AIDS Action...

  Ms PATTEN: I would like to just make a couple of comments now that we are in schedule 1 of this bill that we quite rightly have debated for nearly 25 hours—and it has been in committee for nearly 25 hours. And guess who has been in that committee for that 25 hours? The Independents and the small parties—the crossbench. Guess who has colluded to introduce a bill that will not be equitable, that will not improve democracy and that will not improve grassroots? It is the two major parties. ‘Get out of politics’, they tell us. The crossbench is...