Adjournment matter: South Yarra railway station

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) — My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Public Transport, and as this is the last sitting week before this year's budget is handed down in May, the action I am seeking from the minister is to finally fund an upgrade to South Yarra station in this year's budget. After over a decade of rapid population growth in the area and inaction from successive governments, with barely a cent being spent on the station — under the previous government there was a proposal to expand the front foyer that was rejected, and the previous government cut South Yarra station from the Metro rail project, which again has been continued by this government — we are making some progress. I have over 1300 signatures on my petition to upgrade South Yarra station and almost 1000 submissions to a commuter survey which show that commuter priorities are an interchange with Melbourne Metro, a second entrance with a platform overpass, an expanded front entrance, that the heritage character be maintained and a safer pedestrian crossing at Yarra Street.

Questions without notice: Member's conduct

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) — My question is to the Premier. Premier, Victorians are rightly fed up with the seemingly endless series of scandals involving Labor and Liberal politicians.

Honourable members interjecting.

The SPEAKER — Order! The house will come to order. The member for Prahran, in silence.

Mr HIBBINS — In just this term of Parliament we have seen MPs betray the trust of Victorians with the rorting of the second home allowance, the misuse of ministerial drivers, dinners with mobsters, secret deals with Crown Casino, Transurban and Apple, and now the misuse of public money to fund your election campaign. Victorians want politicians to do better, and we deserve better. Premier, will you now create an independent parliamentary standards commissioner to hold dodgy politicians to account?

Question without Notice: Duck Hunting Season

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran)  — My question is to the Premier. Premier, the recent Pegasus Economics review of the Game Management Authority (GMA) found that breaches of hunting laws during duck season are widespread and commonplace and that the GMA was incapable of enforcing those laws. Given your regulator's own incompetence, will you now stand with the vast majority of Victorians who oppose duck shooting and cancel this year's duck season, due to start in 10 days?

Constituency question: Prahran pedestrian safety

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) — My question is to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and I ask: when will the government start taking action to improve pedestrian safety in the Prahran electorate? Safer pedestrian crossings are absolutely essential to the livability of our community, and over the past few months the minister would have received over 100 emails from residents in the Prahran electorate as part of my campaign to fix dangerous pedestrian crossings.

One of the two most common pedestrians crossings that would have been raised with the minister is the crossing at Punt Road and Pasley Street North, used by schoolkids to get to South Yarra Primary School. It is a crossing that has been made less safe after the botched relocation by the previous government, with daily occurrences of cars running red lights and putting children at risk. The second-most common complaint would have been about the corner of Yarra Street and Toorak Road near South Yarra railway station, where thousands of commuters are mixing daily with cars and trucks at an unmarked, uncontrolled crossing. There are many more dangerous crossings in our electorate that the minister would have heard about, so I would urge him to start listening to the residents in our community and fix those crossings.

Integrity and Accountability Legislation Amendment (Public Interest Disclosures, Oversight and Independence) Bill 2018

Mr HIBBINS (Prahran) — I rise to speak on behalf of the Greens on the Integrity and Accountability Legislation Amendment (Public Interest Disclosures, Oversight and Independence) Bill 2018. This is a bill that makes a number of changes to Victoria's integrity system, most significantly around protected disclosures but also to the powers of IBAC and the Ombudsman, and changes to the oversight committees as well. The Greens will be supporting this bill. It has been an ongoing journey since IBAC was created to get the sort of integrity system that we need in Victoria. Subsequent to this bill, there is still more to be done, which I will outline later on.

I will start with a bit of history on an anti-corruption commission in Victoria. As previously pointed out, there was resistance from the previous Brumby Labor government to setting up an anti-corruption body. The former Premier has even outlined, subsequent to that, that he thought the existing arrangements were satisfactory. Following the election of the previous Liberal government, IBAC was set up, and in setting that body up there were a number of flaws in the original legislation.