Suzanna Sheed
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Sheed secures isolation aid from Victorian Government

August 26, 2021/in Latest News, Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed has secured urgent support including medical staff and essential resources as a third of Shepparton’s population is in 14-day home isolation.

“Last night I spoke to Premier Daniel Andrews who acknowledged the plea from the Shepparton community and is sending an emergency management co-ordinator and medical staff to respond to our crisis,” Ms Sheed said.

“I will be meeting Emergency Management Victoria Deputy Commissioner Deb Abbott later today discuss the community’s critical needs and how she can assist in meeting them.

“Ms Abbott and a squad of support workers will set up base in Shepparton where they will coordinate essential aid to the community.

“More than 50 army personnel have been sent to Goulburn Valley Health to address the staff shortage and 20 more are on the ground to assist with welfare checks.

“The main issue that is creating anxiety in the community is the lack of food and medicine deliveries for families undergoing 14-day home isolation due to being in Tier 1 COVID-19 exposure sites.

“Supermarkets and chemists are working on skeleton staff because a number of workers are in isolation – they simply cannot respond fast enough to the large influx of orders.

“Our community is grateful for the support of community members and community groups like GV Cares who have been working hard to support isolating families, but capacity is stretched.

Ms Sheed was grateful that Mr Andrew’s responded to her community’s pleas for help and is looking forward to receiving the emergency relief.

“It is now Day 7 since the first case was detected in this Shepparton outbreak and there will be thousands requiring further testing on Day 13. It is critical there are sufficient testing stations to deal with the Day 13 testing as it would be unacceptable for people to be kept in isolation beyond the required time.

“It is also essential that important updates are provided to the community about this emergency response and how it us being rolled out.

“I continue to advocate for a better resourced COVID hotline to respond to the community’s growing needs and government advertising to encourage and educate people on the importance of vaccinations and where they can get vaccinated.”

 

Media contact

Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466 │elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

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https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/SS-talking-to-TEN.jpg 1125 1838 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-26 12:34:042021-08-26 12:34:04Sheed secures isolation aid from Victorian Government
Suzanna on the steps of Parliament House with hands folded looks away from the camera for a side profile picture

Suzanna Sheed calls for feet on the ground

August 25, 2021/in Latest News, Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed has called on the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to respond to Shepparton residents’ critical needs amid the lockdown, which has seen almost a third of the city’s population in 14-day isolation.

“Due to the number of workers in isolation, many local food suppliers and the logistics they need to deliver food, are unable to provide the community with its basic needs,” Ms Sheed said.

“Shepparton supermarkets have been identified as exposure sites – one major outlet has been closed, others are telling us that their staff rates have been reduced by 80 per cent today. “This is creating limited or long delays in processing orders.

“We need logistical support to get feet on the ground to undertake many of the basic tasks that assist to put food on the table for our Shepparton community who are currently in lockdown.

“In addition to ensuring that our most vulnerable people are supported through regular government agencies, people need to know that they can get deliveries of food and medications.

“I am greatly concerned that our elderly residents may not be receiving the level of care they need due to a reduced workforce in aged care centres.”

Ms Sheed provided the Victorian Government with Shepparton’s critical needs list, which includes:

1. More staff at Goulburn Valley Health to ensure critical services are provided.

2. We need more testing stations. As more schools and exposure sites are identified the number of tests required continues to grow and by next week there will be people ready for their day 13 testing.

3. Our supermarkets are facing a crisis of staff shortages and have been exposure sites. We need the army to assist them with restoring online ordering, packing food and groceries and delivering goods throughout the community.

4. The COVID hotline needs more resourcing. People are anxious and need urgent access to information and resources. The wait times are long and contributing to general anxiety.

5. A push for community vaccinations in the form of advertising, broader communication, and clear information that Pfizer is now available to over 16-year-olds along with longer opening hours.

 

Media contact

Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466 │elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

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https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_0012-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-25 16:19:092021-08-25 16:19:09Suzanna Sheed calls for feet on the ground

Praise for innovative COVID-safe changes Shepparton Festival

August 6, 2021/in Latest News, Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed used her member’s statement in parliament this week to congratulate the organisers of the Shepparton Festival for their innovation in the face of COVID-19 restrictions.

Ms Sheed said restrictions after the fourth lockdown made it likely the festival would be cancelled but the organisers put their heads together and came up with an alternative plan that worked.

“With the support received from Creative Victoria, GOTAFE, and the City of Greater Shepparton, the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary against all the odds,” Ms Sheed told parliament.

“With the theme Unify, this winter festival was striking in so many ways.

“A mixture of sound, light and movement created some amazing events in the face of great adversity.

“A choir of local singers appeared every evening in various parts of the city singing in the cold winter air. There were pop-up dance performances behind glass in a city arcade.

“The festival engaged with the broader community and was a melting pot of diversity.”

Ms Sheed congratulated everyone involved in the Shepparton Festival for making winter a brighter place for the Shepparton district community.

Media contact

Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466 │elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

Click Here for PDF Version

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021-Program-Guide-scaled.jpg 1920 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-06 12:39:162021-08-11 12:53:13Praise for innovative COVID-safe changes Shepparton Festival

Sheed calls for action from Victorian Government on floodplain harvesting

August 6, 2021/in Latest News, Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed welcomed the response in Parliament this week to her call for action on floodplain harvesting in the northern Murray-Darling Basin.

Acting Victorian Water Minister Richard Wynne told Ms Sheed that the Victorian Government would make a submission to the New South Wales upper house Inquiry into Floodplain Harvesting.

“I have been very concerned for some time that the Victorian Government is taking a backseat role in representing Victoria’s interest on this critical issue,” Ms Sheed said.

“I have been watching the developments in northern New South Wales closely and the attempts to legitimise floodplain harvesting by government regulation. The upper house of the New South Wales Parliament has disallowed these regulations and has now called for an inquiry into the practice.

“My recent trip up the Darling River and across the Northern Basin showed the huge number of dams that have been built since the state signed up to the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement in 1995.

“It is simply not good enough that New South Wales has ignored the terms of this agreement by continuing development when Victoria has abided by its terms.”

Ms Sheed, who is making her own independent submission to the inquiry, called on the Victorian Government to make a submission detailing Victoria’s critical interests, before submissions close next Friday, 13 August 2021.

Mr Wynne told Ms Sheed the State Government would make a submission to the New South Wales inquiry.

He said the State Government opposed floodplain harvesting and would continue its advocacy to get a decent and a sustainable outcome when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin, and particularly related to traditional owner groups.

Ms Sheed told Mr Wynne that the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement means that Victoria and southern New South Wales must provide South Australia with a share of water but when the Darling River does not flow, it has to supply a greater amount.

“On top of this the environmental damage to the Darling River has been devastating and flows have been reducing progressively over the last 20 years,” Ms Sheed said.

“We saw and heard from farmers and community representatives all along the Darling River on our recent trip and it is extremely concerning these issues are not being properly addressed.

“It’s unfair that Victoria and southern New South Wales have to sacrifice water from the Murray River, when the water is being depleted from the Darling River by irrigators in the Northern Basin.

“A failure to supply from the Darling River in any year directly affects the water allocations on which the Murray River irrigators depend.”

Media contact

Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466 │elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

Click Here for PDF Version

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Suzanna.jpg 2048 1536 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-06 12:18:092021-08-11 12:38:50Sheed calls for action from Victorian Government on floodplain harvesting

State Government support for Med-Con a step closer

August 5, 2021/in Latest News, Media Releases

Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed has called on the Victorian Minister for Health Martin Foley, as well as every other state and territory minister, to support Shepparton’s medical supplies manufacturer Med-Con.

During parliament this week, Minister Foley said following Ms Sheed’s plea, he asked the state health department and health agencies (including those engaged with the Federal Government) to support purchasing personal protective equipment from Med-Con.

Ms Sheed said she was buoyed by Minister Foley’s efforts and hoped Med-Con would receive the support it deserved from the Victorian Government.

“When the pandemic started early last year, Med-Con was the only Australian medical mask manufacturer,” Ms Sheed said.

“When we were in urgent need of medical masks for our community and medical staff, we relied heavily on Med-Con for our supplies.

“The Federal Government quickly sent in army support so that Med-Con could scale up and produce huge quantities of their high-quality masks for local supply.

“It was evidence of how important Australian manufacturing is to our sovereignty. When it comes to time of crisis, every country looks after itself and we were grateful that this local company was able to protect us during the start of the pandemic.

“This gratitude was soon forgotten by federal, state and territory governments when a supply of cheaper imported stock became available.”

 

Media contact
Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466 │elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

Click Here for PDF Version

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/noah-syedKPtMEFo-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-05 16:16:232021-08-05 16:16:23State Government support for Med-Con a step closer
Suzanna Sheed Independent Member of Parliament for Shepparton dressed in business suit and holding papers stands in the Legislative Assembly and address parliament

Judicial Proceeding Reports Amendment Bill 2021

August 5, 2021/in Latest News, Parliament

I rise to make a brief contribution on the Judicial Proceedings Reports Amendment Bill 2021. The bill will amend the primary act to provide that the publication prohibition in section 4, which makes it an offence to publish details likely to identify a person as a victim of a sexual assault or sexual offence or even of an alleged offence, ceases upon the death of that person. This means that families of deceased victims and others, including media, will be able to legally publish details that identify the deceased person as a victim of sexual offending.

The bill also creates a new pathway to allow people who are close to a deceased sexual offence victim, such as a family member, to apply for a court order restricting or prohibiting the publication of identifying details about the deceased victim, and this will be known as a victim privacy order. These amendments recognise that there are those in the community who feel very strongly about these issues, and it is important to publicly talk about the sexual offences committed against loved ones, especially when they have died. For some families, sharing their stories can be part of the healing process, it can assist with their ability to grieve and it honours the memory of the loved one who has experienced profound trauma and violence. On the other hand, there are those who consider the protection of the victim’s privacy to be the paramount consideration and that it should be absolute, and these people would totally oppose any publication of the details of their loved one’s offence. So we have got two very strongly held views on these issues.

The bill, which came before this house last November, proceeded with amendments that made it easier for victim-survivors to speak publicly about their experience and control when and how their stories were published by others. However, to deal with the publication and identification of deceased victims remained problematic, and the government was very clear that it needed to do more work and consultation with advocacy groups and families before bringing forward the final amendments which are here today. And in the meantime it proposed that there had to be an application to the court to be able to allow that publication to occur. When I spoke on this bill last November, I acknowledged the fact that this is a very sensitive area and that there are very strongly held views about the issues at play. I paid my respects to all of those who have suffered from the extreme trauma of sexual assault and of course to the families of deceased victims. I know of families in my own electorate who have been devastated by circumstances such as this. I am pleased that this bill has been brought back in circumstances where more consultation has taken place and there has been more consideration of the issues. I specifically asked the Attorney-General when I spoke on this bill last November not to forget our regional areas in that consultation process, and as difficult as it has been with the many lockdowns we have had since last November, I am pleased to say that I am assured that quite broad consultation has taken place. And I know that it has locally in Shepparton and that indeed the Goulburn Valley Centre Against Sexual Assault were engaged along with a number of Aboriginal organisations in the broader community.

We are living in a time where women are standing up for themselves and each other against sexual assault and harassment, and this legislation is really timely. While there will always be divergent views, we are in a time when the public interest calls for openness and accountability, and this bill is one way of providing for it. In my 35 years as a practising family lawyer in the Shepparton region, many of those were as an independent children’s lawyer, and it is fair to say that you never become hardened to the stories of sexual assault that occur not only within the broader community but also within families. Family law was one of the places where that was so often highlighted, along with the Children’s Court in this state, where often some of the most horrendous stories are indeed told. I would like to just say that the Goulburn Valley Centre Against Sexual Assault has been there in Shepparton through all those years of my practising as a lawyer. They are still there, and they provide a remarkable service to the community and to victims. Often they are the hidden people. You do not know who goes through those doors, you do not know what stories are being told—but I do. I know what work they do to counsel and assist and help people through the court processes as they are going on and then to heal as they move onto that next stage. Organisations like this are just so essential, and I am pleased to see that there are now more and more organisations engaged with helping victims work through these really unbelievable times that they do suffer.

There is no doubt that times change. I seem to recall when the Goulburn Valley Centre Against Sexual Assault was first established it was like an amazing thing. Even the name itself seemed like, ‘Gosh, what a thing, to have an organisation like that’, but here we are. We know and we now acknowledge the horrendous behaviour that does occur in society and the terrible crimes that have been committed against women and children. This bill facilitates a way forward for people to help them deal with the issues that they face at that time, and accordingly I commend the bill to the house.

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Capture.png 559 988 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-05 11:44:542021-08-18 10:46:49Judicial Proceeding Reports Amendment Bill 2021
Suzanna on the steps of Parliament House with hands folded looks away from the camera for a side profile picture

Shepparton electorate – crematorium in Shepparton

August 4, 2021/in Parliament

Asked: 4 August 2021 Shepparton electorate

My question is for the Minister for Health. Members of our growing Sikh community in Shepparton, a wonderful multicultural community, met with me recently for the purpose of discussing the establishment of a crematorium in Shepparton. Shepparton does not have a crematorium at all, and members of many communities who wish to use a crematorium facility have to travel either to Bendigo or to Melbourne, which is a long distance away.
The number of people in our community seeking to use the facility of a crematorium is growing. We have a number of religious groups, and certainly our Sikh community is growing, and they are very keen for me to advocate on this issue, and I do so. I do support the need for such a facility because the travel times and distances, when people are in a time of grief, is really quite difficult, and I think cremation is becoming more popular. I seek that the minister consider this.

Answered: 7 April 2022
Thank you for your question. Under the Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2003, crematorium facilities in Victoria can only be operated by public cemetery trusts.

Cremation services are currently available at nine public cemeteries across the state. As you have noted, the closest Victorian crematorium to Shepparton is located at Eaglehawk Remembrance Park in Bendigo.

Under the Act, a cemetery trust can seek approval from the Secretary of the Department of Health to establish a crematorium. To obtain approval, the trust must have sufficient funds to construct a crematorium, provide a robust business case and demonstrate the viability of the project.

If a cemetery trust intends to seek approval from the Secretary to establish a new crematorium, they should contact the department to discuss the process that is required to support their application.

Martin Foley MP
Minister for Health
Minister for Ambulance Services

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IMG_0012-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-04 11:33:412022-04-19 11:36:34Shepparton electorate – crematorium in Shepparton
Suzanna Sheed Independent Member of Parliament for Shepparton dressed in business suit and holding papers stands in the Legislative Assembly and address parliament

Floodplain Harvesting

August 3, 2021/in Latest News, Parliament

Adjournment: My adjournment is for the acting Minister for Water, and the action I seek is that he make a submission on behalf of the Victorian government to the inquiry into flood plain harvesting being conducted by a select committee of the Legislative Council of the New South Wales Parliament. Submissions for this inquiry close on 13 August 2021.

I have raised with the minister on several occasions my great concerns about flood plain harvesting in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. Earlier this year I and other stakeholders from my region travelled up the Darling River into southern Queensland and across to Moree looking at the proliferation of dams that have been built on private land, all in breach of the cap agreement in the Murray-Darling Basin plan that was put in place in 1995. It is truly astounding to see. The flows in the Darling River and the lack thereof have an impact on Victoria and the Goulburn-Murray irrigation district, which is in my electorate. The Darling River contributes to the downstream flows of the Murray-Darling Basin, and this contribution is enhanced by the Menindee Lakes.

The current basin agreement means that the Victorian and New South Wales systems are obliged to meet the minimum flows and dilution flows across the South Australian border each year and provide South Australia with their share. If the Darling does not flow in any season, then the shortfall has to be made up by Victoria and southern New South Wales from the Murray. So a failure to supply from the Darling River in any year directly and adversely impacts the Victorian and New South Wales Murray allocations. This has been occurring with increased regularity.

Canada’s largest state-owned pension fund has now acquired more than $4 billion worth of Australian farms and irrigation water, and some of these assets are located in the northern basin, where they enjoy the current benefits of unregulated flood plain harvesting as well as their purchased entitlements. These investors do not care about the state of our environment or about our rivers. The facilitation of foreign ownership of water of this magnitude is truly staggering. The corporatisation of land and water in our local communities is having a dramatic effect on the socio-economic wellbeing of these communities.

The New South Wales government has only recently introduced regulations to its Parliament to effectively legitimise this flood plain harvesting, and the upper house of the Parliament has disallowed those amendments on several occasions and appointed this inquiry to look into the matter. The Victorian government knows the damage that has been done to the Darling River by flood plain harvesting in the north, and I call on the government to— (Time expired)

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Capture.png 559 988 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-03 19:14:502021-08-18 10:54:41Floodplain Harvesting
Suzanna Sheed Independent Member of Parliament for Shepparton dressed in business suit and holding papers stands in the Legislative Assembly and address parliament

Budget Papers 2021-22

August 3, 2021/in Latest News, Parliament

I am pleased to rise to speak on the budget reply motion. It seems like a long time ago that the budget was announced here in Parliament, and yet it is not that long. The fact that we had two budgets last year also disorients us a bit I think in terms of what is happening and how our communities are getting along.

I would like to start by focusing more on my electorate and how it has fared through budgets and of course through the current pandemic. I think the context of this last budget has been quite different. During 2020 there was certainly a very significant push to keep the economy on track, to fund major projects and to fund many other projects that were shovel-ready, with a view to keeping the economy going, keeping people in employment and dealing with what was really the great unknown. This budget, the 2021–22 budget, is really a more modest budget. It seems to me that there are not as many blue-sky projects but it is really a case of government holding the fort. Even though there is very considerable expenditure in it, it is more about providing somewhat of a backbone to keep our communities together. Many of our communities have felt very isolated during the last 16 or 18 months since the pandemic started, and I think those lockdown periods, when we see deserted streets, deserted communities, have a real impact certainly on people’s mental health but also on their sense of wellbeing, on their capacity to really understand how they might cope going forward, whether it be financially or in their businesses and the like.

It has been very pleasing coming from a rural community to see that in 2020 we had good rains after several years of very dry weather and really worrying drought, and so that rain last year and again this year has seen excellent cropping and it has seen the dairy industry doing really well. That has been an incredible boost for our agricultural and horticultural communities, and in particular in my district. So amongst what has been a very stressful time there are businesses that have really thrived and done well and others that are always at the mercy of the elements that have also done well.

My electorate has been the welcome recipient of a number of budget spends, with close to $1 billion being spent over the last seven years since I have been representing the Shepparton district. It has been an investment that we never saw before, and it has been an investment that was really needed. The investment has been spent on essential infrastructure—things like rail, health, education and agricultural aspects as well. In relation to rail we have had something like $356 million invested by the Victorian state government, and that was for stages 1 and 2. And then we saw a deal struck with the federal government whereby another $320 million was invested that will see nine V/Locity trains a day travelling between Melbourne and Shepparton—something that many of us would never have imagined when we came to Melbourne on an old rickety train at 6 o’clock in the morning, many in our pyjamas, to demonstrate on the steps of Parliament just to show how much we wanted something done about rail in our region. It has been a great boost to have increased services already—to know that these better, faster services are well on their way and that the works are underway now.

In health we have also seen stage 2 of Goulburn Valley Health built, a five-storey tower at the north end of the city which is really quite astounding. It is providing services now that were rehoused from really just a patchwork of other buildings and other departments around what was becoming quite a shabby hospital. A new emergency department, a new special care nursery, a new paediatric ward, new theatres, new wards for patients—these things all make the city of Shepparton in itself a much better place to live and to work.

One of the recently funded projects was the Arcadia fish hatchery. Now, this is a project whereby the government has decided to spend $7 million to house a fish hatchery on 170 acres of a property just south of Shepparton. It will be a huge fish hatchery that will breed Murray cod and silver perch—all those species that are so important to our iconic Goulburn River and of course the Murray River. Stocking our rivers on a regular basis is something we have to do, and it is great news for the Shepparton district that that has been located so close to Shepparton—and not only that, there is funding now for tourism aspects to go with it. I think we might one day see a huge Murray cod at the front gate of the fish hatchery. Who knows?

There is an opportunity as you head into Shepparton to visit something like the fish hatchery or the new Shepparton Art Museum, which is just astounding but has not yet been formally opened; it will be later in the year. We have got the new fire station in Shepparton that the fire services have recently moved into, and you then see the vista of the new hospital building. So Shepparton in recent years has really come ahead. Of course it is not just about Shepparton; it is about the servicing that we do in a regional city like Shepparton to the whole broader region: up to the Murray and further south towards Nagambie. All these towns and communities benefit from the regional city that they are closest to, where most of their services are provided.

The fish hatchery also has set up a training course in conjunction with TAFE to ensure that we have a large Indigenous group of young people employed at the fish hatchery. It was great to see in this year’s budget $10.7 million go to GOTAFE for their Goulburn Murray Trades Skills Centre redevelopment. More apprentices and students will go on to fill skilled roles in our own community. I think we all know and have heard constantly how difficult it is to recruit skilled people to come to country and regional areas, so educating them as our own homegrown students is really something that is needed and that we aim to do. A lot of the processes are now in place as a result of the Shepparton Education Plan: TAFE, La Trobe University and the Melbourne University rural medical school. All these things are part of the story that will see us be able to provide a lot of that depth of educated people that any community needs. It was excellent to just see La Trobe’s recent graduation of their nursing course. Fifty per cent of those student nurses were employed by Goulburn Valley Health in Shepparton—a great strike rate on any view of it, I would have thought.

Along with the budget we also received a $6.4 million announcement for Queensland fruit fly control in the Goulburn Valley, Sunraysia and the Yarra Valley. Fruit fly is a scourge that you may not all know about, but when you cut open a piece of fruit and see what is inside when it has been infected by fruit fly it is really horrible. It has a very significant economic impact on our orchards around Shepparton. We produce the pears, the peaches and the apples for most of Australia, and the impact of fruit fly on horticulture in our region has been severe.

Interestingly, most of the fruit fly is found in our urban areas, so a lot of this program is about getting people in the urban areas to address the fact that their tomato bushes in the veggie garden, their lemon trees, their pomegranate trees—whatever they have got—are actually seeding fruit fly. A lot of it is about teaching the urban communities about what is going on, because the farmers know about it and they are doing their own work because it is such a huge financial investment for them.

The Verney Road special school received $1 million by way of funding to start looking at its future. It is the main school in Shepparton for children with special needs, children with autism. It is incredibly crowded, and a refurbishment or a full redevelopment is overdue. Work is now well underway following that announcement being made to look at what the future will hold. With the Shepparton Education Plan underway there is real opportunity to start thinking about what we can do for young people in our region who are in mainstream schools but who are not being educated because the education system does not cater to their needs. Very often that is young people with autism. It is a spectrum, as we know, and there is such a huge range of young people who are not being catered to but who sit there not knowing what is going on sometimes.

I am very keen to see this study of special needs in our region look at not just those who are already identified as having special needs but those who are already in mainstream schools and not being catered for. The inquiry conducted by the Family and Community Development Committee of this Parliament when they did a study into autism recommended that there should be an autism school in a regional area, and I say Shepparton is the place that that should be, because we are presently rolling out the Shepparton Education Plan with the full support of the government, which has invested over $140 million in education in Shepparton. There is a real opportunity to do a wraparound of all the needs of all young people, to see that everyone is included in the opportunity to get an education, with that view to actually having a pathway, whatever that might be, when they leave school.

There were many other budget announcements that our community will benefit from although not directed directly to projects in the region. The $200 million School Mental Health Fund will be very welcome. We have projects in our region such as the neighbourhood schools project that will be looking for funding under this stream of funding that has been made available for multidisciplinary teams that can work and identify with children who have suffered significant trauma and provide early therapeutic intervention so that those children have a chance of moving forward.

We will receive a share of the $148 million for the regional Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership. Shepparton has been identified as one of the six sites for that, and already applications are being taken for the first round of students. I am very hopeful that teachers in our region will look to upskilling and taking on new qualifications through that process.

There is $23 million over the next four years for continuing court programs. We have a drug treatment court that will come to Shepparton gradually, and that has proved successful in other places. We want to see reoffending reduced in our communities. There is support for vulnerable families. There is money for improved bus services, and of all the things that Shepparton needs at the moment one is a review of bus services. Our town has expanded, and there are many areas now to the north and south of Shepparton that are not being serviced by buses in the way we would like them to be.

It has been a good budget for Shepparton in a sense, but over the longer term we have seen a real investment that will provide returns to our community in a way that it has been calling out for for so long. It had been neglected for a long time, and we have seen investment in those major areas that really impact people’s lives. Health, education, public transport—all these things really matter.

We are a community that is very dependent on water and irrigation, and we are now at a time when we are seeing opportunity for huge investment in energy. We have over 60 solar farm applications proposed, underway or being considered across the Goulburn Valley region, which is really astounding, and I think we have not thought through as a community—as a government even—a strategy as to where these projects would be, where they would be best utilised and the competition between irrigation, land and energy. There are some really big issues that do need to be looked at as we go forward. I commend the budget.

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Capture.png 559 988 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-03 18:16:522021-08-18 11:00:46Budget Papers 2021-22
Suzanna Sheed Independent Member of Parliament for Shepparton dressed in business suit and holding papers stands in the Legislative Assembly and address parliament

Government Business Program

August 3, 2021/in Latest News, Parliament

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this government business program. While I will be supporting the government business program, because these two pieces of legislation are incredibly important, I am very unhappy with the way that these bills have been presented to the house at such short notice. I believe that receiving copies of the bill effectively when they are circulated in the house, having got notice of them just yesterday, is not the way that the business of this house should be done.

The Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme Bill 2021 is obviously an incredibly important one, and that is across the whole of Victoria and probably across most of Australia now. It is with great sorrow that I have to talk about some of the businesses in my electorate that have really been doing it very hard, and I recall in the last week speaking with two in the hospitality industry. They are some of our outstanding operators, and they are being faced with situations that they never thought they would face because of their success prior to COVID.

They have been hit so hard with the shutdowns. Just the tendency for people to be staying at home so much more is really having an impact. So this sort of relief—and we saw it throughout most of last year and indeed up until March this year—is welcome and will at least provide something. But it is a situation where a lot needs to be done quickly and not have delays in payments coming to people, because the level of desperation out in our communities is really great.

I think in a situation where bills are presented to the house in this way not to have consideration in detail of those bills is outrageous. It is not good enough to just pass that off. In fact it is the only opportunity in this Legislative Assembly—which is the house of government, in case we have forgotten that—that we get to question ministers, to hold ministers accountable in some way, to let them stand up and defend their bills and show a bit of passion for the bills that they are putting before the house. We get no opportunity to scrutinise bills in this way. There has been a long-term periodic pattern of reduction in consideration in detail. I could refer to the paper that Ray Purdey, a former Clerk of this Parliament, did some years ago where he did a complete history of the introduction of government business and the disposal of non-government business in this house. Gradually over the years there has been an almost complete wipe-out of consideration in detail in this house. We see consideration in detail in the upper house taking place, but most of the ministers are not there. That is not holding government to account. That is not holding ministers to account. That is not giving us the opportunity to question.

This Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme Bill 2021 is largely going to be detailed in regulation. You know, maybe this was a good opportunity to go into consideration in detail, because we have not seen the regulations; the regulations probably have not been done. I would certainly give the government the benefit of the doubt in that surely they would know what is going to go in the regulations and a minister could get up and explain what the bill is, what the regulations will be and how this will work so that by the end of Parliament on Thursday people in my community would have some idea of what to expect in some detail. But no, we do not have that, and it is an entirely unsatisfactory circumstance.

It makes a joke of the lower house of this Parliament—we who are the seat of government. We are elected to pass legislation finally and the upper house is a house of review. I mean, really, why are we handballing all the work that is meant to be done in this house to the upper house? It is an entirely disgraceful situation. It is time that the government addressed it. We need a non-government business program. We need to be able to do disallowance motions. We need to be able on this side to consider introducing legislation that affects our communities. We need to restore some level of democracy to this house of this Parliament which has gradually and progressively disappeared. It is not good enough to come in here with bills at the last minute and then shut us down on them. We should be allowed to question ministers on these bills.

https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Capture.png 559 988 Suzanna Sheed https://suzannasheed.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sheed-Logo-V2.png Suzanna Sheed2021-08-03 12:53:032021-08-18 10:49:36Government Business Program
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