Neglecting the West: Budget Response Speech

Ms HARTLAND (Western Metropolitan) -- I like to consider myself fortunate that I live in the western suburbs. There are many positive aspects: a sense of community, knowing your neighbours -- it is just a lovely place to live. But of course there are also negatives. One of the negative aspects can be seen in what has happened in the City of Brimbank, and we see it in the fact that there are several members of Parliament who do not bother to live in their electorates and thus have no real connection to the area they represent. The community should always be the first priority, whether it be at the local, state or federal level, for those of us who are privileged enough to be elected to public office.

As in many places across Melbourne, the population in the west has increased substantially in the last five years. This creates a real burden on infrastructure. The thing I would like to start with is public transport. It is obviously a major gripe, and I have raised it a number of times. It is either overcrowded or non-existent.

Running peak-hour trains at 20-minute intervals is not a service: it is the equivalent of what other train lines in more affluent suburbs receive on a Sunday. Recently new services were announced for the Werribee line, but the fine print reveals that they will not be going during peak-hour periods and the service will not be available for people wanting to get on at Westona, Altona or Seaholme stations.

Outer suburbs are still waiting for appropriate public transport infrastructure. Allocations are cited in the budget -- at a cost of $151 million or $153 million, depending on which budget document you are reading -- for three new stations in growth areas. Two of them are in my region, Williams Landing near Point Cook, and Caroline Springs, which will be a new station on the existing Melton-Bacchus Marsh line, but it will not be electrified. I do not understand why anyone would build a new station for a suburban area without electrifying the line. I really hope we will not see here a repeat of the South Morang situation, where in election cycle after election cycle people were promised a station, but no station appeared.

I continually raise the issue of dangerous overcrowding on trains in the west with the Minister for Public Transport, but nobody seems particularly concerned about that. I have written 'Connex' here in my notes, but I understand Connex will not be the provider any more, so we can only hope -- touch wood! -- that things will improve, because under Connex they have been disastrous.

Connex has not recognised, nor has the government, that there is a need to meet the growing demand. I do not quite understand how anyone can do this level of planning and not notice an increase in population.

The government needs to get creative on a different means of transport, such as bikes, and that could include also properly funding the Westgate Punt, which would allow cyclists to ride safely and avoid major trucking routes such as Whitehall and Francis streets.

There is a real lack of police in the west. Police numbers are not keeping up with the dramatic rise in population. We often have situations where police from one station are put into another station, and it is just not good enough.

I have a particular concern for the mental health of people from CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) communities and those with refugee backgrounds, who experience poorer mental health outcomes compared with persons born in Australia, and they often present to mental health services at a later stage in their illness. Preventive and early intervention with CALD communities is vital.

I do not see anywhere in the budget a provision for the delivery of mental health promotion and awareness within CALD communities.

I recognise that in some ways the government is undertaking a mental health reform strategy, but it seems the funding for the strategy, especially in terms of early intervention, prevention and accommodation, is insufficient. While the budget has raised much-needed residential bed targets, community contact hours remain static, which means that targets are unlikely to be met.

An excellent example of a health service I have had some dealings with is headspace, which operates out of the Visy Cares Hub in Sunshine in the western suburbs. Headspace Western Melbourne is a flexible service that provides early intervention in mental health and drug and alcohol services for young people. People can walk in off the street. No referral is needed and there is no judgement, so the organisation has had some good outcomes.

One of the problems is that headspace's funding is about to be cut by 30 per cent, which will mean that it will not be able to deliver services. While I acknowledge that mental health is a federal issue, I would have liked to have seen the state looking at some of these innovative programs, especially those for young people, that could have been well funded. In less than two years headspace has seen more than 1500 people in its clinical program, which has resulted in more than 6000 occasions of service provision. Unfortunately this service could be dramatically cut. The state government should have taken it up.

One other area that has not been addressed well by the government is that, because of the global financial crisis, a number of large charities and charitable funds and services that rely upon their investments will undergo cuts in funding. How are their needs to be met? Before the budget was handed down, I spoke to people at VCOSS (the Victorian Council of Social Service) and they indicated there was a serious problem.

VCOSS has recommended the introduction of a non-government organisation price index which would respond to the impacts of the global financial crisis to ensure the sustainability of the community service sectors, but unfortunately that has not happened. VCOSS recommended a 4.2 per cent non-government organisation price index for all funding and service agreements, but that was not forthcoming from the government.

Health is obviously a major problem, especially in the western suburbs where more health promotion, early prevention and prevention programs are needed to ensure that pressure is not increased on services provided by hospitals. However, upon reading the budget it is clear that in the 2009-10 budget health promotion has been cut by $50 million.

Home and community care (HACC) funding is failing to keep pace with our ageing population and the increasing popularity of that form of care.

It is obvious that keeping someone at home is much cheaper than caring for them in residential care.

Obstetric services in rural areas continue to decline, with not enough commitment from the government to address this issue. This is a problem at both state and federal levels.

Other issues, such as hepatitis C, continue to fly under the radar. There are nearly 80 000 Victorians with hepatitis C, approximately 20 000 of whom live in rural areas, and there are not enough services. An older woman came into my office a few weeks ago. She said she had received a pension increase, but immediately the Office of Housing put her rent up, so she can never catch up. The state government needs to look at that issue, especially for seniors.

I am getting tired of reading about the obscene amounts of money that the government reaps from problem gamblers, especially those in the western suburbs. Last year Victorians lost $2.6 billion on poker machines in pubs and clubs. The government is not doing enough to assist people who have an addiction to poker machines. There is no evidence that the suburbs in which people gamble the most receive the most benefit from the Community Support Fund.

In a number of the suburbs which are part of my electorate women are very isolated. There are not enough services, and there is not enough infrastructure. People are stuck at home; creating housing estates on paddocks and failing to deliver basic services causes isolation.

For a few minutes only I have touched on a number of portfolios and my region, but I think it actually reflects that story of the western suburbs: health, community services, young people, mental health and women's affairs suffer the same neglect from this government as is experienced by residents of the western suburbs. Rural and regional health services are in the same appalling state as public transport in the western suburbs. As we have seen in the campaign against a road tunnel through the western suburbs, Victorians will only tolerate this neglect and disrespect for so long.

As the Greens member of Parliament for the western suburbs, I am quite proud of the advocacy we perform. We will continue to work with communities in the western suburbs and in rural and regional areas for women, young people and seniors to ensure that services are provided to all Victorians on the basis of need, not politics. We will continue to represent those who are forgotten in the budget year after year, especially those people who do not have a strong voice of their own. As I said at the start, it is a privilege to live in and represent the western suburbs. The people I represent have a strong spirit, and we will continue to work to bring about change.