Victorian Labor members will press the Allan government to permanently waive public transport fares, fully fund public schools and scrap council rate caps at the party’s final state conference before moving into election mode.
But the Health Workers Union will not be able to vote or attend the event after it officially began the process of disaffiliating from Labor, which was ordered by the union’s national office.
On Saturday, Premier Jacinta Allan will address the party faithful in what will be a soft launch of Labor’s election campaign, urging members to help Labor win a historic fourth consecutive term in power in November.
The conference’s proximity to the campaign has not deterred unions and local party branches from using the event to petition for key policy changes to be part of Labor’s agenda.
Among the resolutions to be debated, seen by this masthead, include a push to make public transport free permanently. This month’s state budget locked in half-price fares for the second half of this year, after the end of two months of free fares.
“The cost-of-living crisis brought on by Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East will not end on 31 May,” the motion says.
Another resolution, from the Australian Services Union, urges the government to scrap the current cap on council rates. Former premier Daniel Andrews introduced the annual caps on how much councils could increase their rates, tied to inflation to protect ratepayers from uncontrolled rises.
The ASU last year passed a motion calling on the government to abolish the caps by March this year, arguing it was holding back workers’ wages. It will debate the issue again and has called on the government to find a new method of determining rates, including better reflecting operating costs for councils, population size and wages.
“Victorian Labor’s reimposition in 2016 of Kennett government rate capping, ostensibly as a means for reducing household and business taxation, continues to fail Victorians,” the motion says.
The resolution argues the Allan government has breached the party’s policy platform, which from 2022 committed to ensure councils did not use rate caps to reduce services or undermine industrial relations. The ASU also argues rate capping harms local government services, particularly in rural, regional and disadvantaged communities.
Among the other motions are a resolution calling on the government to meet its Gonski funding obligations, known as the Schooling Resource Standard, no later than 2028 as originally planned.
This masthead previously revealed the Allan government had pushed back its timeline to fund 75 per cent of the resource standard – with the Commonwealth meeting the remainder – out to 2031, slicing $2.4 billion from state schools.
Last week, Education Minister Ben Carroll secured an interim agreement with the Australian Education Union, which, if approved by members, could help meet these obligations by delivering pay rises of between 28 and 32 per cent over four years for teachers, principals and other staff.
Another motion calls for VicHealth to remain independent, fighting against the government’s plan to abolish it as a standalone agency and absorb it into the Department of Health for the first time since it was created by the Cain government.
The Health Workers Union will not be among the unions represented at the conference. The union, which has been in administration since the Fair Work Commission brought civil charges against former secretary Diana Asmar, has stopped paying its affiliation fees after being ordered to cut its ties to Labor.
Administrator Charlie Donnelly, a former National Union of Workers national secretary, unsuccessfully tried to maintain the HWU’s affiliation to Victorian Labor, but the union’s federal office took the issue to the Fair Work Commission and won.
Health Services Union national secretary Lloyd Williams argued the Victorian HWU branch was insolvent and had huge debts to the Tax Office, which meant it should be focused on financial management rather than paying affiliation fees.
The conference was due to unfold on the eve of the long-awaited release of the corruption watchdog’s report from Operation Richmond, which investigated the government’s dealings with the United Firefighters Union.
But on Thursday the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission [IBAC] revealed that the release of the report, due next week, would be delayed as it faced new court proceedings.
Legal battles have already contributed the report’s delayed release. The investigation has been under way since at least 2019.
“We remain committed to the release of the special report, which is ready for publication, pending the resolution of the proceedings,” IBAC said in a statement.
It is unclear who lodged the latest challenge to block the report’s publication.
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