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Sheed joining Speak Up for Water’s Convoy to Canberra

November 28, 2019/in Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed will be joining a convoy heading for Canberra next week to bring the dire plight of irrigators and dairy farmers in the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District to the attention of federal politicians.

“It is sign of how desperate these hard-working people are that they feel the need to take their grievances directly to Canberra,” Ms Sheed said.

“If you know anything about dairy farmers, you know taking two days out of their busy working week is no small undertaking. The least I can do is go as well and try to help lend my voice to theirs.”

While the drought commands headlines, it is the on-going mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin Plan and poor water policy that has been exacerbating already tough conditions, according to Ms Sheed.

“There are numerous reports that now verify the significant socio-economic damage that has occurred and which continues to occur in our southern basin communities,” Ms Sheed said.

“It is a fact that in farming communities we don’t always see eye to eye on every issue but I believe it is essential that we should all stand together to demand that governments fix the Murray Darling Basin Plan and the damaging aspects of current water policy more generally.

“While there are issues for state governments to address such as carryover, transparency and inter-valley transfers there are others that require the attention of Canberra. It is extraordinary to consider that there has been no investigation into the recent scientific report of Prof Gell who maintains that the Lower Lakes were estuarine and that the science the plan was based is dodgy.

“Let me make this clear – so-called water reform has turned water into a tradable commodity with a market that would not be tolerated in any other industry sector. It is largely unregulated and there is little to no regard for the health and wellbeing of communities across the Basin.

“There is minimal oversight of this ‘water market’. There is no transparency. Corporate water speculators are getting rich while hundreds of family dairy farmers in my electorate go to the wall.

“Recent environmental watering of the Barmah Forest has been ad hoc. Perversely, the environment which the plan seeks to protect is being damaged as the Darling River runs dry and riverbanks at the Barmah Choke and lower Goulburn River are destroyed.

“If Littleproud and Morrison cannot see how damaging the Plan is – economically, socially and environmentally – then they are being wilfully blind, or they are captured by rich private interests.”

ENDS

Media contact

Myles Peterson 0467 035 840│myles.peterson@suzannasheed.com.au

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Tatura Water Fluoridation – Petition

November 26, 2019/in Parliament

By Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (1905 signatures). Tabled.

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Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Bill 2019

November 26, 2019/in Parliament

I am pleased to make a contribution on the Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Bill 2019. This bill amends the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 to establish a new penalty for the criminal offence of workplace manslaughter. I will not speak for long because I know others want to contribute, but I have given considerable time to reflect on this bill. I have listened to many of the contributions that have been made, and I reflect on the community that I come from and the high number of workplace incidents that have been brought to my attention over the years. We live in a community where there are many food processing factories. We are an agricultural community. We grow a lot of fruit and vegetables. There is dairying, milk production—all those things. Because we value-add to those products, we do have a lot of factories. Listening to the news I have heard of many tragic deaths, often of young people and in circumstances that were preventable. I think of a young man who was working a forklift in a coolroom, but the doors were shut so he died of carbon monoxide poisoning—something that was preventable. I think about the young woman who was effectively scalped by her hair being caught in a machine and being rushed to hospital. People’s lives have been changed forever by incidents like that. More recently—and I refer to a death in relation to a farm in my region—a Victorian farming company was fined almost $500 000 for major safety violations that contributed to the tragic death of a 15‑year‑old boy. It is the circumstances that are the relevant thing here. WorkSafe Victoria prosecutors said three young teenagers were taken by a labour-hire person to work picking snow peas on a farm, but left on the farm was a forklift with the keys in it. The three young boys were unsupervised. Inevitably one of them decided to go rogue, hopped on the forklift and was driving it around at speed, and ultimately it turned over and he was killed. The two other young boys had to witness that terrible circumstance. These are things that happen on farms so easily. There was another case at a factory in Shepparton where a woman was seriously injured, again as a result of a forklift. The workplace was not properly set up for the driving of a forklift with an attachment on it, and it was carrying a large pipe in the factory. The injuries that this woman has suffered, to her face, to her eye socket, will live with her forever. The company was fined heavily, and that was the outcome of the case. But the magistrate in that case said: The risk associated with this operation and operation of the forklift in these circumstances in my view is obvious … these injuries should never have occurred in the workplace. The magistrate went on to acknowledge that the company has since implemented a workplace management plan that effectively ensures that such an accident will not occur again, so the employer is now called a model employer, but at what cost to this woman who was injured before that change in the workplace occurred? 

I would like to refer to the fact that the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry were a part of the implementation task force. They had concerns about the exclusion of employees from the legislation. That, too, troubles me to some extent, but not to the extent that I am prepared to oppose the bill; I think some of these things take time to work out. Again, referring to the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF), they have called for an exemption for family farms. The grounds for the exemption is the suffering families will endure with the loss of a family member, and they think it would not be appropriate or in the public interest to prosecute another family member. So many accidents occur on farms—family farms. There are very few family farms, dare I say, that do not employ people as well. It is not just the family members that are there. In a dairy there generally will be people employed. It is the same on most farms that grow produce, and of course in the Goulburn Valley, when tomato picking or other fruit picking is taking place, there are many employees on the property, and the risks are great. I do not believe that that exemption should apply. I think that farmers absolutely need more education, and the VFF wants to see included in the legislation that there be much more safety education. I think we have a lot of safety education out there. I for one feel like I stop dead when I see on television an advertisement about rollovers. There are farmers on their quad bikes or whatever and they roll over, and instant death takes place. These are very powerful ads. The other powerful advertisement that I have seen, and that I think has probably had quite an impact on our community, is the WorkSafe one about the father pictured coming home from work. No-one should go to work and expect to die at work. That risk should be eliminated as much as it possibly can be. Putting in a high standard to me is really important because when these sorts of incidents that I have talked about happen, they have subsequently been seen to be so easily fixable. The circumstance was subsequently fixed and accidents such as these would not happen again. There is clearly a need for much more oversight within factories and work circumstances to deal with these sorts of unsafe work practices in the beginning, but to exempt a range of people from them is not what I see as a solution. Stats from Safe Work Australia reveal that there were 144 workplace deaths in Australia during 2018, and of the industries most affected, the transport, postal and warehousing industries had the most deaths, with 38. Farms, which fall under agriculture, forestry and fishing, had 37 deaths, so not very far behind. I think it is really salutary to think about the sorts of circumstances that are out there that we commonly hear about. To some extent I am guided by the fact in making the decision I have to support this legislation that I have often been in a car listening to the news and I have heard what the penalty is—a money penalty—for a death in circumstances where my instant reaction was that someone was responsible for that. If that circumstance exists, I think then that person ought to be made to take responsibility, so I support the bill.

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https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/default-post-image.jpg 240 330 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2019-11-26 02:13:352020-02-07 02:48:20Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Bill 2019

Shepparton Bypass

November 26, 2019/in Parliament

Questions without notice – My question is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. I am delighted to hear the minister’s account of all the projects happening in regional Victoria, but she will be very well aware that the Shepparton bypass has been on the agenda for a very long time. It is the final duplication of the Goulburn Valley Highway. The Shepparton bypass has had a lot of investment in recent years, but this is a pivotal part of it. In the 2017–18 Victorian state budget two and a half years ago, funding was put aside for a business case. Minister, where is that business case? When will it be released? When will it be made available to our community?

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Minister response – Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (11:34:37): I thank the Independent member for Shepparton for her question. As we have seen over the last five years since we have had an Independent member for Shepparton, there are actually issues about infrastructure in Shepparton getting raised in this place, so I am very pleased to address— Mr Merlino interjected. Ms ALLAN: The Deputy Premier has interjected that it beats pathetic representation. It sure does beat the pathetic representation the Shepparton community had for 90 years from the National Party. Anyway, I digress. The member for Shepparton quite understandably wants to know, and is eager to know on behalf of her community, the progress that is being made on the business case. As the Premier has also reminded me, this business case has been funded by our government in previous budgets. I can advise the member for Shepparton that that work on the business case is ongoing. A project of this size and scale and importance does require careful planning, and we are working closely with the community to get that planning right because whether it is road or rail, each project comes with a different range of complexities, and there are some complexities that have been identified through the business case and work that has been done to date. I am advised that there is significant work that needs to be done to ensure that the relevant environmental and cultural heritage issues in particular are addressed through the business case, so that work is ongoing. I know that there had previously been some optimism that that business case would be completed towards the end of this year. I am advised that it is not likely to be until next year because of these issues that have been identified. It also highlights why it is important to do careful planning and development of major and important projects like this—that you identify some of these challenges and you go through rigorous business case planning and development to work on these issues. I can advise the member for Shepparton that Major Road Projects Victoria will be conducting soon its second meeting with the project liaison group to provide some further information directly to the local community. That includes representatives from councils, local landowners and key groups, and so we will continue to keep the Independent member for Shepparton, the local community and indeed the federal government, who I know also have an interest in this project, informed of the progress of the business case. However, I will underscore the point that it is important that we undertake this planning, do the rigorous planning process, to identify any issues. You would rather identify them now in this planning stage than have them uncovered during the construction phase when it is much more difficult to address, so we will continue to work through those issues with the Shepparton community.

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Supplementary Question – Again to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, I would be horrified to think that this project might take as long as the Echuca bridge that has just dragged on for so many years. This is an important project because it links Brisbane to the port of Melbourne. It is a federal project as well, and the federal government have now put $208 million on the table towards this project. Can the minister tell me what negotiations she is undertaking with the federal government in relation to the future funding of this major project? 

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Minister response – Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (11:38:11): I will resist the temptation to give the long history of the Echuca-Moama bridge and the betrayal of the Echuca community by the National Party—why that project took so long. On the issue of the Shepparton bypass, the member for Shepparton has identified that the federal government have made a funding commitment. However, I can advise that on our work done to date the funding that the federal government has on the table will not be enough for their share of 80 per cent of the project to be funded. It is important that we are providing this information to the federal government. I have spoken already with the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, about this project and how there are some challenges with the funding that has been made available. We will keep working with them on that. We will do this properly, unlike the National Party, who close country train lines, abandon country communities and betray them time and again. We take a very different approach. Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, she is the Leader of the House. She knows the standing orders— Members interjecting. The SPEAKER: Order! Ms Staley: The minister knows not to do that, and she waits till the last few seconds of her contribution to get up and abuse the standing orders just for the sake of it. She does it time and time again. The SPEAKER: Order! The minister knows she should not attack the opposition.

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Water for Northern Victoria

November 26, 2019/in Parliament

Grievance debate – I hope I can contribute something about my electorate that is meaningful to this place and also to all the young people up there in the gallery today who have come to see how Parliament works. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I encourage members not to refer to people in the gallery. Ms SHEED: I grieve for rural communities, particularly those in the north of this state. Before I become explicit about that I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the trauma and the difficulties that are taking place in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland at the moment with the bushfires—rural communities that are in such difficult circumstances as we speak. In my inaugural speech in this place in February 2014 I spoke about my community of Shepparton district as a creative, industrious and self-starting community. It is a region at the forefront of global food production. It is a region that supplies the world with world-class product, food and fibre. We export internationally. We provide the food that is on the tables of everyone in this place, everyone in the state of Victoria—clean, green food that we all value. We have in the Goulburn Valley some of the greatest numbers of food processors. We not only produce the food in our region but value-add to that food. We are not ripping things out of the ground and sending them to other countries for manufacture; we manufacture the milk product in our region and then we export it, and of course we provide for the domestic market. We are often referred to as the food bowl of Australia. The region produces 25 per cent of the total value of Victoria’s agricultural production. We produce the vast majority of Australia’s pears—something like 90 per cent of the pears—28 per cent of the nation’s apple harvest and 70 per cent of our national peach crop. The Murray dairy region is one of the largest milk producers in Australia. In the Goulburn Valley we produce over 1.4 billion litres of milk each year. But the outlook has changed in northern Victoria since the beginning of the millennium drought and in the dry years that have followed up until now. In northern Victoria there are now less than 1000 farmers when previously there were 3000. Water is a critical part of the operating fabric of a dairy farm in northern Victoria and represents over 60 per cent of the assets of the region. Since the 2004–05 milk season the production of milk has reduced so much—45 per cent—and at the same time that has been contributed to by the incredible loss of water to the Goulburn-Murray irrigation district for irrigation purposes. We had 2350 megalitres of water available to us over 10 years ago; we are down now to 800 megalitres this year being used. The impact of that on our regional economy has been devastating. We have farm exits occurring at a rapid rate now, and we expect them to continue to increase. The dairy industry is in crisis. I am reliably informed that 105 farmers at least have already quit the industry in recent months, and it should be noted that for every $1 million of dairy production there are over 6.5 full-time equivalent jobs, and they are lost at the same time. Farm businesses are truly suffering, and we believe that more and more will leave over the next few months. It is fundamentally because dairy farmers are not able to afford to buy water at the price it is currently going for—$600, $700, $800 a megalitre. Dairy farmers are simply not in the competition at any stage with that. Northern Victoria is in drought. People seem to think the fact that the Murray River runs between New South Wales and Victoria means that we are not. It makes no difference that a river runs through, and the fact that there might be water availability for some people in northern Victoria does not take away from the fact that all of that land that is not irrigated is in drought. The countryside is tinder dry, and we have seen what the impact of that can be in the north just now. The Murray-Darling Basin plan is no doubt responsible for a very significant part of these impacts. The reduction in production of milk and the loss of our factory at Tongala, the Nestlé factory that has been there for so many years, has just resulted in 106 jobs being lost. The dairy industry continues to suffer from the clawback that Murray Goulburn and then Fonterra imposed on their dairy farmers in 2016. It has just been a history of one thing after another to create this terrible situation. Over the river in New South Wales they have had zero water allocation for two years, but the extraordinary thing about what is happening in this region at the moment is the fact that our rivers are running full. The Goulburn River and the Murray River are full. Water is running through those rivers higher than ever down to South Australia to keep the Lower Lakes at 100 per cent, to keep them freshwater. They were never freshwater lakes. They were estuarine lakes, but by a sleight of hand—and this has been absolutely verified by the CSIRO, by Professor Gell’s recent peer-reviewed paper, which said that this was the case—and by way of fiction, South Australia have been able to achieve a storyline that those lakes were fresh, and it is simply not true. So we are seeing massive quantities of water flowing down to those lakes. Barrages are open today pouring water out to sea, four of them. Last week there were 25. A month ago there were 33—33 of the barrages on the Lower Lakes in South Australia pouring fresh water out to sea. In the New South Wales Parliament today they are debating a bill called the Water Supply (Critical Needs) Bill 2019. That is because so many towns in New South Wales have no water or have about six months’ water left. They are boring for water. They are trucking water in. I think we have all seen the images on television many times. These are towns with no water, and yet in my region, which is in drought, our rivers are full. Our dams are at about 50 per cent, roughly, capacity, and yet we are seeing massive amounts of water wasted. That water is going very quickly. It is going to be used for some irrigation during this season, but it continues to flow uninhibited down to South Australia. The Goulburn Valley not only has the dairy industry but it has many permanent plantings. I have talked about the peaches, pears, apricots and apples. These are trees that take many years to grow to get to the point of production. I am now hearing, and reliably so, that if this dry period continues those permanent plantings will be at risk. They are the trees in my region that are at risk, not to mention the almonds further down towards the Sunraysia—the table grapes, the citrus all down there. These are permanent plantings. These are the most critical part of our agriculture story because they take so long to re-establish and get to production. We are seeing dairy herds and we are seeing sheep depleted—herds across the country at some of the lowest numbers they have been in over 30 years. So many animals are going to the abattoirs. We have seen farmers trying to feed them, bringing in hay and bringing in stock to try and do that, but they are unable to achieve that outcome, and they certainly will not be able to next year if this dry period continues. It beggars belief that we would waste so much water when so much of the eastern seaboard is in such dire straits. I can hardly believe that I can stand here and be saying this when we know the impact on those regions just above us. We do not have to look hard to see what is happening there. The preservation of that water that we have for critical human needs and for permanent plantings going forward must be put high on the agenda of governments, and I find it extraordinary that we spend time in this place today throwing mud at each other on party-political lines when surely every representative, particularly of any regional electorate, must have things that they can contribute about their electorate and how they are faring at the moment, particularly in view of this water shortage that exists across the state. I think that the concern about permanent plantings and the future of our country towns is really weighing on people’s minds. And losing something like 700 gigalitres of water—that is a lot of water—every year from the Lower Lakes by evaporation and that fresh water flowing out to sea is to me reprehensible behaviour.

The Goulburn Valley has always been the food bowl. It has been very productive, and over the last five years Shepparton has seen some really significant investment from the Andrews Labor government. We have got Goulburn Valley Health—stage 1 of the new hospital underway. We have got the Shepparton Art Museum, which is now up to the fourth storey with a huge crane on it. It is going to provide a cultural experience that we would never have thought we would have had in Shepparton. We are getting investment in more bus and rail services, and we are told we will be ready for VLocity services, nine of them a day, within the next few years. The Shepparton Education Plan is underway. This is all significant change that has been brought about in the Shepparton region, but we need to think about why Shepparton is there. Why did Shepparton ever develop as a city, as a town? It developed to serve its agricultural community around it. It is different from Bendigo and Ballarat. They were gold rush towns. They were built on the back of gold. Of course they continue to serve their agricultural communities, but the Shepparton region, the Shepparton district, its heart and soul is in agriculture and horticulture and the dairy industry, and the town is there to service it. The biggest employer in our region now is health. The town is thriving on the back of this investment—and private industry is really growing on the back of it also—but just drive outside the edges of our town and you see the dry country that is not being produced on in many areas. It is a mishmash of some paddocks that have got a bit of irrigation water—they are irrigating it to grow fodder. There are trees that desperately need water, and they are trying to buy in the water to keep them going. And then there are so many dry paddocks, especially as you travel north. This is not the picture we need to see. I think it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that the productivity of our regions is saved when we know that it can be. Shepparton would be nothing without its agricultural communities. We have seen small towns north of us, around us, being hollowed out by the exit from farms by farming people over what has now been a 20-year period—3000 down to 1000 probably down to around 800 by the end of this year. These are massive and significant issues. We are seeing billions of dollars being spent in Melbourne. We are seeing the Metro Tunnel being built, the North East Link, the western distributor, metropolitan hospitals—huge investments—and these are all needed for the growing population. Melbourne will be the biggest city in Australia before long, but decentralisation is something the government needs to look at—and central to that is the importance of regional cities. Shepparton is one of those regional cities that should be connected and should be maintained to help solve the problems that Melbourne will have in the future. I wrote to the Premier, to the Minister for Water and to the Minister for Agriculture in September setting out much of what I am saying in this speech. It is essential that here in Melbourne, here in the Parliament in Melbourne, there is recognition of what is going on in our regional areas. We have been calling for a review of carryover. We have got a review of transparency laws in water trading happening now, and we really need that. We need an investigation into what is happening with the Lower Lakes in South Australia. I have called for that in this place. So many people are calling for it. Not a single government has the appetite to do that, and it is a disgrace that they do not because we need some truth—we need some clarity about what that whole Murray-Darling Basin plan was predicated on. And if it was predicated on some of the science that is in fact incorrect, then that ought to be exposed and fixed up. I do not see us getting rid of the Murray-Darling Basin plan. Everyone recognised that the environment needed some water, but we did not predict that the losses and damage to our regional communities would be so great. It is inconceivable to think that water for human needs is at such a critical state across our eastern seaboard and that Victoria is next in line and that we are not acting now to take precautions to preserve what water we have—to save the trees that we have in the ground and to make sure that particularly my region continues to be a thriving agricultural and horticultural area.

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https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/default-post-image.jpg 240 330 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2019-11-26 01:49:252020-02-07 02:48:16Water for Northern Victoria

The Orange Door

November 26, 2019/in Parliament

Adjournment – My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, and the action I seek is that the minister visit Shepparton to update us on the establishment of the Orange Door and to meet with stakeholders who are involved in rolling out this important initiative. In October 2018 the Victorian government announced that Shepparton had been selected as the next location for Victoria’s new support and safety hubs, known as the Orange Door. The service brings specialist workers from family violence, child and family, and Aboriginal services together as well as services aimed at perpetrators and legal and accommodation advice. Funding for the Orange Door will support one physical location based in Shepparton along with outpost offices and other access points to ensure people across the Greater Shepparton region have access to the service. Our community is looking forward to hearing the details of when the Shepparton district can expect to see this important service up and running.

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https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/default-post-image.jpg 240 330 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2019-11-26 01:44:172020-02-07 02:48:40The Orange Door

Sheed angered by Shepparton Bypass business case delay

November 14, 2019/in Media Releases

Independent Member for the District of Shepparton Suzanna Sheed has expressed her anger that the release of the long-awaited Shepparton Bypass business case has been delayed.

The latest delay was revealed yesterday following a question without notice asked by Ms Sheed in the Victorian Parliament of the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Jacinta Allan.

“In the 2017–18 Victorian state budget, two and a half years ago, funding was put aside for a business case. Minister, where is that business case? When will it be released? When will it be made available to our community?” Ms Sheed asked.

“It was my understanding that the business case would be delivered this month and it is disappointing to hear the Minister say the release of it has been delayed until next year.

“I would be horrified to think that this project might take as long as the Echuca bridge. That has just dragged on for so many years. This is an important project because it links Brisbane to the Port of Melbourne. It is a federal project as well, and the federal government have now put $208 million on the table towards this project,” Ms Sheed said.

Later, Ms Sheed expressed her anger over the delay.

“The people of Shepparton and Mooroopna have been waiting decades for this project. The land is acquired. The Federal Coalition Government have committed $208 million to date and no doubt recognise that more will be required for this project. All that is holding it up is the business case which will indicate the funding required and the Andrews Government continues to delay this.,” Ms Sheed said.

“My constituents deserve better than having industrial traffic forced down their main thoroughfares. It is noisy. It is dangerous and it damages the heart of our townships.

“We have been well served by the Andrews Government in health, education and rail funding and I call on that government to continue its good record in the Shepparton District by delivering the Bypass business case.”

ENDS

Media contact

Myles Peterson 0467 035 840│myles.peterson@suzannasheed.com.au

Click here for PDF version

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/default-post-image.png 240 330 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2019-11-14 18:23:582019-11-20 18:28:21Sheed angered by Shepparton Bypass business case delay

Sheed angered by Shepparton Bypass business case delay

November 13, 2019/in Media Releases

Independent Member for the District of Shepparton Suzanna Sheed has expressed her anger that the release of the long-awaited Shepparton Bypass business case has been delayed.

The latest delay was revealed yesterday following a question without notice asked by Ms Sheed in the Victorian Parliament of the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Jacinta Allan.

“In the 2017–18 Victorian state budget, two and a half years ago, funding was put aside for a business case. Minister, where is that business case? When will it be released? When will it be made available to our community?” Ms Sheed asked.

“It was my understanding that the business case would be delivered this month and it is disappointing to hear the Minister say the release of it has been delayed until next year.

“I would be horrified to think that this project might take as long as the Echuca bridge. That has just dragged on for so many years. This is an important project because it links Brisbane to the Port of Melbourne. It is a federal project as well, and the federal government have now put $208 million on the table towards this project,” Ms Sheed said.

Later, Ms Sheed expressed her anger over the delay.

“The people of Shepparton and Mooroopna have been waiting decades for this project. The land is acquired. The Federal Coalition Government have committed $208 million to date and no doubt recognise that more will be required for this project. All that is holding it up is the business case which will indicate the funding required and the Andrews Government continues to delay this.,” Ms Sheed said.

“My constituents deserve better than having industrial traffic forced down their main thoroughfares. It is noisy. It is dangerous and it damages the heart of our townships.

“We have been well served by the Andrews Government in health, education and rail funding and I call on that government to continue its good record in the Shepparton District by delivering the Bypass business case.” 

ENDS

Media contact

Myles Peterson 0467 035 840│myles.peterson@suzannasheed.com.au

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Murchison Aged Care Facility

November 7, 2019/in Parliament

Members statement – Let me tell you a story about a little country town that has been outstanding for its community spirit and its dynamism, a town that has looked after its elderly folk. When the bush nursing hospital eventually closed, it became an aged-care facility, which is the hub of this small country town and where its ageing population was welcomed and where they remain closely connected to their community. Family members could easily access the home to visit their ageing loved ones and often at mealtimes went down the street to the home to help feed them and talk to others at the table. It is a home that has been sufficiently staffed. It is a home that has a standard that will not be talked about at the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety because there will be no need to. Now that community is being punished for caring for its elderly at a standard above and beyond. This has led to financial ruin, and elderly folk are being transported as we speak to foreign environments away from their own community, isolated from their families and devastated by the confusion and grief of the closure of their local nursing home. The administrators have come in, and they are winding it up now. We cannot let this happen. This is Murchison. We need a government with a heart and soul to step in to save this small community nursing home and give some hope back to the people of a small community in a country town in northern Victoria that is currently in despair.

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Justice Legislation Amendment (Criminal Appeals) Bill 2019

November 7, 2019/in Parliament

I rise to make a contribution on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Criminal Appeals) Bill 2019. This is a fairly significant piece of legislation. I would like to start by talking about the fact that the government is proposing to abolish the right to a de novo hearing on appeal to the County Court. Now, I see that as something very concerning. It reflects to some extent a lack of understanding of the pressures that exist in our Magistrates Court in terms of the hearings that are happening there. The government contends that in most appeal cases there would be a requirement that victims and witnesses not give evidence again. A de novo appeal is where the whole case is heard again, effectively a fresh trial so victims and witnesses do then have to give their evidence again if that is the case. However, it must be remembered that in many cases in the Magistrates Court a plea of guilty may have been entered and it may be just the sentence that the person is appealing against, but once it goes up to the County Court then a full hearing would ensue to ensure that everything is heard and everything is before the court.

There is no doubt that our community wants to see a situation where victims in particular are not burdened with the need to repeat their story over and over. I think all of us understand that, especially in cases of family violence and child sexual abuse—those sorts of cases where there has been so much effort made over the years to deal sensitively with witnesses and victims who have to give evidence in those circumstances—that is truly welcomed. I think generally everyone in the community supports that. I have to say that in Shepparton just recently we had the Attorney-General come and open the first family violence court in Victoria. That has been as a result of many things but also part of the fact that we actually have a new courthouse in Shepparton that has been built in recent years. It left the old—I suppose you would call it 1930s, 1940s—courthouse that had not been used for many years available to be completely refurbished and turned into the family violence centre. Within that there are numerous meeting rooms so that barristers, solicitors, victims—all those involved—have plenty of places to meet. There is a big, large area where people can congregate, but they have to go through security. There is then a special room set aside where a witness or a victim can give their evidence in a separate room, videoed through to the court where the hearing is taking place, and they can have a support person with them. These are just amazing facilities that we now have in Shepparton to deal sensitively with the many sorts of cases where you really are concerned about that overexposure of witnesses. I do go back to the fact that in our Magistrates Court there are very many practical decisions made when the person is before the court, and very often it is the case that a person will choose to plead guilty and take their chances on a sentence.

On the other hand they could elect to go to trial. It might be a more serious matter and they could elect to have their case go straight to the County Court for trial. There are a couple of factors here that concern me. One is that there will be less inclination for people to have cases dealt with summarily if they feel that they are not fully prepared or if they are perhaps unrepresented. Many people before the Magistrates Court are unrepresented. We only know too well how stretched legal aid funding is and how there are many people in our community who face court on their own unrepresented. They might talk briefly to a duty lawyer. I have been in court many times where the queue for the legal aid lawyer sitting in that duty office is very long. 

I think another aspect of this will be that many people will seek to have their cases adjourned rather than dealing with them on the day. In some ways the Magistrates Court can be seen as rough justice, but it is a practical and quick solution for many people with more minor charges. When it is more serious, people really need to consider whether they are prepared to take the chance before a magistrate, particularly if they know they are not going to be able to have a further hearing or have their case dealt with at another level later on. That is a situation that really concerns me, and it is a reason why I do not support the removal of de novo hearings on appeal.

The Magistrates Court in our state works at the coalface. They get criticised up and down, up hill and down dale. I have to say that during the last Parliament the campaign run by the Herald Sun in its criticism of the judiciary, in particular magistrates and judges whose sentences were not liked, was really concerning. It prodded the government, I believe, to do some things that were perhaps in retrospect not the best. We know that we now have so many people on remand in our prisons. Our prisons are bursting at the seams. Our magistrates have really been criticised so much when their workloads have increased dramatically over time. They get criticised for soft sentencing. That is a fictitious phenomenon that is not reflected in the statistics. Just recently we had the Sentencing Advisory Council come to Wangaratta to run effectively mock courts where members of the public would come in, sit in the courtroom and hear all the evidence for themselves and then they would decide on what would be an appropriate sentence. The sentencing council have done this in many places, and they have found that members of the public will generally sentence more harshly than a magistrate or judge does. It just reflects that notion that magistrates who actually hear all the evidence, see the witnesses and understand the nuances of every case are making some pretty good decisions a lot of the time, especially when they have got the time to do it. Members of the public who think magistrates are making wrong decisions are often misinformed in that regard and would probably be much harder themselves.

I think it is very important that we support our judicial system at every level because history will tell us that bad and fair outcomes will be caused where judges and magistrates are under pressure, where they do not have the time and where they do not have before them the evidence they require to deal with the issues before them. I spoke against mandatory sentencing in this place two years ago when that issue was before this Parliament. That legislation went through, as we know, but I think there is a real concern around that, because again, it removes from the judiciary the ability to take into account every factor relating to a person, and it is not appropriate that we respond to the media when we are thinking about how our justice system should look. I see that the Minister for Youth Justice is here today. It has been very refreshing to hear in this 59th Parliament a change in the way we are thinking about prisoners, about the prison system and about young people. There is a discussion now about restorative justice, and there is a discussion about intervention in early childhood. The minister at the table is coming to Shepparton in the near future to meet with various groups who are working so hard in that area of early intervention, because we know in our communities who the next young people are who will be going to jail, and if we do not intervene at an early stage for those young people, then that is what will happen—they will just become statistics in the justice system. All the evidence now shows that early intervention can change the trajectory of young people’s lives, young people who have been subject to environmental trauma, to family violence and to all sorts of things and who are often dysfunctional in schools. Programs in schools that provide a therapeutic environment for them to be dealt with are now being shown to have a really significant effect. We have the Lighthouse Project in Shepparton also working towards young people having better outcomes. So while I support the bill generally, I have my concerns.

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https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/default-post-image.jpg 240 330 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2019-11-07 03:08:572020-02-07 02:48:12Justice Legislation Amendment (Criminal Appeals) Bill 2019
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