With the Victorian state election only days away, we take a look at where each party sits on key policy areas.
Transport and infrastructure
Labor
Labor are promising a hefty $60 billion towards major transport and infrastructure projects in a bid to win over voters.
Additional pledges include:
• A suburban rail loop to connect most of Melbourne’s existing train lines via a 90-kilometre underground line from Cheltenham to Werribee, including 12 new underground stations. It has an estimated price tag of $50 billion and would take until at least 2050 to build. The only firm pledge of money so far is $300 million for a business case.
• A long-awaited rail link to the airport could begin by 2022.
• The removal of 50 of Melbourne’s “most dangerous and congested” railway crossings was a previous election promise and is ahead of schedule with 29 removed this term. The new promise is for 75 to be gone by 2025.
• Labor have also pledged to upgrade arterial roads and country rail lines, and $100 million for planning towards first trains to Geelong and Ballarat. Work is already underway on the Monash Freeway and West Gate Tunnel upgrades.
Coalition
The Coalition have pledged a $19 billion “European-style” regional rail network. It’s a key promise to the party’s commitment to decentralise the state aiming to encourage people to move out to the regions and alleviate pressure from Melbourne’s record population growth.
The plan includes high-speed rail on four lines, travelling up to 200kmh.
Additional pledges include:
• Support for the West Gate Tunnel and the North-East Link.
• To resurrect the East West Link that dominated the 2014 election campaign. Labor scrapped the previous Coalition government’s deal after taking office, costing taxpayers $1.2 billion dollars.
Greens
The Greens stand in opposition of the big new road projects and have focused on public transport and improved conditions for cyclists.
• Proposed upgrades to the busiest road routes in a $2.3 billion pledge over ten years.
• Build 30 high-capacity trams a year for the next 10 years.
• The Greens want new tram routes for suburbs which do not yet have lines.
• A metropolitan bike network to include cycling routes connecting major destinations, on-road separation if possible and upgraded bike lanes.
Health
Labor
Labor have made health the centrepiece of this year’s campaign launch, with $1.3 billion pledged to boost nursing numbers, build 10 community hospitals and fund 500,000 extra regional specialist appointments.
Additional pledges include:
• Provide every state school student with free dental check-ups and procedures and $232 million to build seven new early parenting centres.
• A royal commission into mental health to begin within 100 days of the government being re-elected, at a cost of $13.2 million.
Coalition
The Coalition has promised the contraceptive pill would be available to women over the counter. Women would need to visit a doctor for the initial prescription but subsequent scripts could be brought under the subversion of pharmacists.
Additional pledges include:
• $140 million for palliative care and a $50 million package to families with children who are autistic.
• Several hospital upgrades and a new hospital for fast growing Warragul in West Gippsland.
Greens
The Greens pledge a $270 million boost to mental health funding, which included community mental health services and dedicated youth services.
Its focus is on preventative health and it wants to restrict advertising of junk food to children.
Law and Order
Labor
Labor has introduced a raft of reforms to increase sentences, reduce judicial discretion in sentencing, tighten parole and restrict bail. After coming under significant scrutiny, it announced last year the hiring of an extra 3,100 new police officers and plans two new prisons.
Additional pledges include:
• New offences, such as a three-year minimum term for aggravated carjacking and aggravated home invasion - which was a reaction to gang attacks and home break-ins.
• Two officers to be on counter duty at all times at 24-hour stations, and a minimum number of police available on the road to respond to emergency calls.
Coalition
The Coalition have made law and order the prime focus of this election, labelling the government as being “soft” on crime. The Coalition has promised to “get back in control,” and is touting tougher bail conditions – saying anyone who breaches bail, even for minor offences, will be jailed.
Additional pledges include:
• Build several new police stations, upgrade several others and add daytime PSO shifts at 20 train stations considered hotspots.
• Targeting youth crime by putting police in schools and introducing mandatory drug and alcohol treatment for young offenders with substance abuse problems.
• Introducing a pilot “boot camp” program for non-violent teens as an alternative to a youth justice sentence.
• Spurred by the Bourke Street terror attack on November 9, the Coalition announced new promises including people deemed a terror threat being banned from the CBD or forced to wear electronic monitoring devices.
Greens
The Greens favour expanding and funding alternatives to prison including corrections, restorative justice and diversionary programs. It would repeal mandatory sentencing laws and re-introduce suspended sentences, which have been abolished.
Education
Labor
Labor has promised more than $1.68 billion over the next decade on education spending.
Additional pledges include:
• Building 100 new schools over eight years, each coming with an integrated kindergarten by 2022. Children aged three will get 15 hours of kinder free
• Employing more than 190 mental health professionals to work in every state secondary school
• Providing free sanitary products in schools
Coalition
The Coalition have promised to scrap the Safe School anti-bullying program and bring in a program of its own.
Additional pledges include:
• Trial compulsory sport for state schools and ban mobile phones at school.
• Allow religious instruction during teaching hours.
• Donating $16 million to a charity that provides uniforms to underprivileged students.
Both Labor and the Coalition have promised $400 million for Catholic and independent school upgrades.
Greens
The Greens say they will target laws that allow religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQI students and teachers.
Domestic violence
Labor’s key pledge in this area is to implement all 227 recommendations of the royal commission into family violence – 90 of the commission’s recommendations are either complete or under way.
Additional pledges include:
• Building 1,000 public housing properties across the state for homeless people and those fleeing family violence.
• $2.6 billion to boost family violence responses including 17 support and safety hubs across Victoria, specialist family violence courts and a prevention agency.
• $6.5 million to support the new Aboriginal 10 Year Family Violence Agreement.
Coalition
The Coalition has not promised to implement all the recommendations of the royal commission, although it says it is committed to reducing family violence.
Additional pledges include:
• Law-and-order responses, including mandatory jail terms for offenders who contravene a family violence order.
• New non-fatal strangulation offences in family violence cases – an idea rejected by the royal commission.
• Police serving on-the-spot intervention orders when they attend a family violence incident.
Greens
The Greens support implementing all of the royal commission’s recommendations.
Regional
Labor
Labor has promised $1.2 million to develop a TAFE course on shearing and $6 million to upgrade accommodation at agricultural colleges.
Additional pledges include:
• $10 million fund for agribusinesses, promised to fund the National Centre for Farmer Health.
• An inquiry into regional council rates.
Labor also spruiked its suburban trail look to regional voters saying it would save them travelling into the CBD to get around Melbourne.
Coalition
The Coalition has pledged a $1 billion “decentralisation fund” which would fund projects in country areas and grants for businesses to move to regional areas.
Additional pledges include:
• Fast rail for regional towns, and more VLocity trains for VLine.
• Re-assessing the state’s taxation system with a view to encouraging the creation of jobs outside Melbourne.
• The diversion of environmental water for farmers to use during periods of drought.
• $2 million for food studies.
Greens
The Greens want to establish a new national park, stop the logging of native forests, and say the timber industry should transition to plantation wood. It wants to commit $240 million over four years to manage introduced species, and would end duck hunting.
Indigenous Affairs
Labor
Labor made an historic step this term by committing in legislation to pursue a treaty with the state’s aboriginal people.
Coalition
The Coalition do not support the signing of a treaty between the state of Victoria and the Aboriginal people, saying such agreements should be left to the Federal Government.
The Coalition is also pushing hard line crime policy which have been shown to disproportionately affect Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous children.
Greens
The Greens MP Lidia Thorpe is the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian parliament and the only indigenous parliamentary currently sitting.
She has largely shaped the party’s Indigenous affairs policy, which supports the idea of a treaty, but not the process currently being followed by Labor.
Environment
Labor
The key to Labor’s environmental policy is the Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) and associated reverse auctions.
Additional pledges include:
• 25 percent of energy production in Victoria to come from renewables by 2020, 40 percent by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030.
• Subsidies for rooftop solar panels on 700,000 homes.
Coalition
The Coalition have said it will ditch the VRET and build a new 500MW power station, which could be coal, gas or renewables strengthened with a battery or gas.
The final decision would be based on whichever provides the cheapest baseload power.
Additional pledges include:
• Installing solar panels and batteries in 700 public schools.
• 50 percent rebate on new low-energy TVs and 40 percent off new low-energy fridges for concession card holders.
Greens
The Greens want to increase the VRET to 100 percent of the state’s energy production by 2030 and close three coal-fired power stations.
Housing/Planning
Labor
Labor would spend $209 million to build an extra 1,000 public housing units over three years, with women and children fleeing family violence given priority.
Additional pledges include:
• Apartment buildings in the inner-city subjected to tougher standards requiring more green space, sun protection and safe cladding.
Coalition
The Coalition are pushing for the establishment of a population commission responsible for signing off on building approvals with the desired effect of moving population growth into desired areas.
Additional pledges include:
• 290,000 residential housing lots be released and councils would face fines for noting freeing up land in a reasonable amount of time.
• Banning the construction of two storey buildings along Melbourne’s south-eastern foreshore.
Greens
The Greens would introduce a housing ombudsman to settle disputes.
The party wants rent rises capped at inflation.
Additional pledges include:
• 40,000 new units built over the next six years.
• Developers forced to set aside 30 percent of large-scale developments as affordable and social housing.
