The leader of the Victorian Opposition John Pesutto said that he is, “from the Greek parts of Italy Calabria” and said he has been asked why someone from a “working class migrant background would be in the Liberal party?”
Pesutto responded that it is because of it not despite it, that “like all immigrants” he saw that “hard work and the desire to do better made the Liberal Party a natural home for immigrants.”
The Leader of the Opposition fronted multicultural media, in Victoria’s parliament yesterday, flanked by David Southwick the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Major Projects, Transport Infrastructure and Trade and Investment, and Trung Luu Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs. All three highlighted their focus as Pesutto said, on “increasing the voice of culturally diverse Victorians in the Liberal party, particularly from new and emerging communities.”
David Southwick highlighted his Polish and Hungarian Jewish roots and Trung Luu his Vietnamese refugee background.
Southwick emphasised that the ban on the Nazi Swastika was something the Liberals “led from opposition as was the racial vilification laws” and saw his portfolio, “including infrastructure, trade, and investment as something that many multicultural Victorians are deeply interested in especially when it comes to international trade, on how to build better trade with the nations we all come from.”
In terms of infrastructure, he said that many diverse Victorians who live in outer suburbs of Melbourne need better infrastructure and have been forgotten by the Labor Party.
More multicultural voices in Parliament, but what of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament?
Neos Kosmos asked that given all three made a point for a greater voice from multicultural communities, what their position is about the First Nations’ Voice to Parliament referendum.
“We have a very different approach to the federal Coalition, at a state level” said Pesutto, “we have an open mind on the debate.
“People are talking to their communities and listening to their communities.”
He said that the state Liberal party hasn’t “arrived yet at a time where we will need to make any kind of decisions, it depends on what the federal government does.”
“My own view is that people are entitled to form their own views because the community is going through that process and the community has different views on it,” Pesutto said.
He said that former prime minister John Howard’s approach to the Republic debate was something he was considering when Howard said, ‘You’re free to do what you think is right for you.’
“For me personally, I am working through the issues, I am talking to lots of people, and I want to see the outcome of this Select Committee in the Federal Parliament”.
He added that he was conscious that his “colleagues in the party want also to be able to work through the issues.”
“Everybody understands the seriousness of the discussion particular to Indigenous Australians, it is a matter of great national significance.
“For me individually I will announce my position on the Voice, and I’m conscious that the public and the media will want to know where I stand on it,” Pesutto said.
Turning appreciation of multicultural into an opportunity
Luu who was in the Policy Force and the Defence Force said he became very aware of how the outer western metropolitan region of Melbourne which he represents, needs to be better represented. He said the Liberal Party needs to have “more candidates from what were once seen as natural Labor regions.” The emphasis according to all three was to build a bigger base and reach in suburbs once left for Labor.
“We know there is dissatisfaction with Labor in many outer metropolitan seats, especially those with new and emerging and established multicultural communities and are working hard to have members from those areas,” Pesutto said.
Pesutto said that he believed that multiculturalism was a bipartisan position, a success story but said that there is a need to and “a big challenge of turning that appreciation of multiculturalism into an opportunity.”
“There are new Victorians, in parts of our community who do not have that opportunity and I have spoken many times about giving people an opportunity to share in the state’s prosperity.”
The Leader of the Opposition said that it’s not just about attending multicultural events and supporting programs and then asked, “Do we see multicultural Victorians particularly from newer communities entering parliament? Do we see them on the boards of our largest companies, and leading organisations? Are they getting the opportunities they deserve? For me it’s about delivering on the promise of opportunity.”
David Southwick emphasised the need to support small business opportunity and said, “we need to do a lot more in multicultural communities on small business.”
“We know many that come here and succeed in small business, they do it because they must, and they do it well.”
Southwick underscored the need to encourage “new and emerging communities that might struggle” in small business.
“There’s one thing to be able to provide a grant, but it’s another thing to be able to provide an opportunity that can feed generations to come, and that’s something that as Liberals can do a lot better” Southwick said. He said they did not have to “wait to be in government to do that” and that “John, Trung and I have talked about how that we should be doing that right now, how we can bring other people in the room, and mentoring supporting and encouraging them.”
Corruption is corruption says Pesutto
Pesutto said that “corruption doesn’t just relate to criminal behaviour, corruption in our view, and for most people who have concern for probity and integrity in government, extends to unethical improper behaviour.”
According to the Operation Daintree report by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission, (IBAC) staff in the health ministers’ and Premier’s Private Office (PPO) breached ethical obligations by pressuring health department officials to award a contract to the Health Workers Union (HWU) for training hospital staff to handle violence against health workers.
The Daintree IBAC report revealed that before the election, union boss Diana Asmar lobbied Premier Daniel Andrews for funding, and that he subsequently announced an additional $2.2 million for the union to train healthcare workers.
While IBAC did not find evidence of illegal conduct by Andrews, former health ministers Jill Hennessy and Jenny Mikakos, and ministerial and department staff, it did highlight a significant erosion of ministerial accountability and the centralisation of power under the premier’s leadership.
Pesutto said the IBAC report’s focus on the “politicisation of public service which means that you elbow out people who are not political and better at their job to put in a political mate.”
“The premier himself was involved in these meetings, and from which his staff came out and heavied public servants and said, ‘you will approve these grants $1.2 million in later $2.2 million’ to the health services union, which had no status as a registered training organisation, which had no capability of delivering the programmes that were there to help train frontline health workers.”
“Call it grey corruption, or soft corruption, at the end of the day, it’s corruption.”
Trung Luu said that he spent many years in the police fraud squad and that when a professional is using their position to obtaining property or leverage in financial affairs outside a transparent and open process it is “a sort of corruption.”
“It is a broad spectrum of what is corruption not just the narrow definition of legality, and in many ways anyone in private business who did what the Premier did would be immediately fired.”
Neos Kosmos asked Pesutto if he is seriously asking the premier to resign. “I have not used that word, I have appealed to the premier, saying that I think he really needs to consider his position,” the leader of the Opposition said.
“What the premier has done is centralise power and that creates a culture of bullying and intimidation of public servants into doing what they’re told by the premier’s staff.”
“Don’t make any mistake about that, he was directly involved in this operation and so I said that in light of that, the light of the fact that the premier by centralising power around himself, the consequence of that is it that he becomes the problem.”
Pesutto went on to say that whether it’s “Daintree or Red Shirts, whether it’s other misuse of public funds, chaotic botches of the management of public infrastructure projects because of a failure process, this happened because you control everything and surround yourself with power.”
“The Premier should consider his position.”
The Opposition said it was not directed at the premier but it “extends to his colleagues.”
“The question I would ask; are any of his colleagues prepared to call this out and say it is not acceptable in our state?”
“You might have been successful in winning elections, but what’s the point of that? Is the price of victory worth this?
Pesutto said he hoped that the premier’s colleagues might start to take some serious action about whether this is acceptable and sustainable “because it has a financial impact.”
“When this stuff happens, you have a government that is not focused on hospital waiting lists and its ambulance response times, the costs of educating your kids in government schools, the blowout on projects and other scandals across the government,” Pesutto said.
The presser also covered issues such as the failed attempt to oust controversial anti-trans backbencher Moira Deeming, which Pesutto said was his call given a range of issues raised by Deeming which made him “show some empathy” and reiterated his “commitment to openness and diversity”. Indian media raised the issue of the desecration of Hindu temples and the complexity of misinterpreting the Hindu swastika for the Nazi sign which was appropriated.
