I rise to speak on the motion that this house condemns the Leader of the Opposition for failing to stop the Shadow Attorney-General’s reckless campaign for a mandatory five-day office return, condemns the Shadow Attorney-General for spreading misinformation on working from home and for failing to commit to Labor’s plan to legislate working from home as a right for all Victorians. What we are hearing from those opposite shows just how out of touch they are with the realities of modern working life and with the needs of working families across Victoria. Because of them, flexibility at work is not something to support; it is something to apparently attack.

The member for Brighton has made his position very clear, and we have heard that from many other speakers this evening. He has been very openly hostile to work-from-home arrangements, despite the overwhelming evidence that they benefit workers, families and the economy. Last year he demanded that the government force public servants back into the office full time. He claimed without justification that working from home was some kind of sweetheart deal and accused hardworking public servants of failing to deliver. He even said, ‘Every public servant should be turning up to work,’ as if the thousands of public servants working from home are not working hard every single day for Victorians and as if they are not delivering essential services, supporting vulnerable people and keeping our state running. He did not even consult his own colleagues before launching that attack, which seems to be a common theme of his. Even after others in his own party, including federal colleagues, softened their stance, he and his leader still refused to rule out dragging tens of thousands of Victorian workers back to their desks five days a week. We have even heard comparisons from their allies equating working from home to extreme and offensive concepts, which tells you everything you need to know about the mindset that we are dealing with from those opposite.

They simply just do not get it. They do not understand that flexible work is not a fad, it is not a luxury and it is not going away. Flexible work is here to stay, especially for young parents who are both trying to juggle working with childcare and school arrangements on top of everything else in their daily lives. We know that working from home works for people in rural communities who want to connect to more job opportunities. We know that it works for people in our growing regional suburbs like Lucas, Miners Rest and Smythes Creek in my electorate who then do not have to commute to work in busy Ballarat or Melbourne.

That is why our government is acting on this legislation. As the member for Narre Warren North so perfectly put it previously to me, from 1 September 2026 Victoria will lead the nation with world-first work-from-home laws. Under these laws workers who can do their job from home will have a legal right to work from home two days a week. But this progress is at risk, as we know, because those opposite are not just attacking flexible work, they are planning cuts – many, many cuts and deep cuts ‍– which is very much in their DNA. They have announced a plan to rip $40 billion out of the budget. Let us be honest about what that means. The majority of state spending goes to health and education, so you simply cannot cut $40 billion without cuts to hospitals and schools. We already know part of their plan includes cutting one in seven public sector jobs. That means fewer nurses, fewer child protection workers and fewer disability support staff. They might try to dress it up as a back office reduction, but we know that cuts at that scale do not stay in the back office. They hit the front line, they reduce services, they hurt communities and they shrink our economy, because when you cut jobs like that, you are not just cutting costs, you are cutting livelihoods. This is not responsible economic management, it is reckless. It is exactly what Victorians have seen before. Cuts are part of their DNA, as I have previously said.

In contrast, I am much more happy to say that our government understands what modern work looks like and what modern families need. We have listened to workers. We have heard from more than 36,000 Victorians through public consultation, and the message could not have been clearer. Nearly three-quarters of workers told us that the right to work from home is extremely important to them. Thousands said that they do not even feel comfortable asking their employer for flexible work because they fear it will be refused or, worse, held against them. Among those who have asked and been refused, most said the decision made their work and home life harder. These are not just abstract policy debates, these are real experiences. It saves time – hours every week that would otherwise be spent commuting. It saves money on fuel, parking, public transport and child care. For many families, that adds up to more than $5000 a year back in their pockets. That is not a small amount. It is groceries, it is bills, it is school expenses. In the cost-of-living crisis that we are in now, we know that every dollar counts, and more than $5000 a year back in pockets really does add up.

It also boosts productivity. Tens of thousands of workers have told us that they are more focused and get more done when working from home. Importantly, it boosts participation in our economy. Flexible work helps parents, carers and people with disability to stay in jobs and build careers, including women. The amount of women that I have doorknocked in suburbs like Miners Rest, Mitchell Park, Lucas, Smythes Creek, Haddon, Smythesdale – there are so many areas where so many women are at home when you knock on the door at 2 o’clock on a Wednesday because they are working from home and they have that flexibility and they know that they can go do the pick-up at school and then they can get back to work. As the member for Narre Warren North put it, not everyone is just working 9 to 5 anymore. Sometimes people might be working into the evenings or earlier in the morning. That flexibility is what really matters, and that is what we want to see with these work-from-home arrangements.

While we are looking forward, building a fairer, more flexible, more productive economy, those opposite are looking backwards. They very much want to drag us back to a one-size-fits-all, 1950s, male-dominated model of work, a model that does not reflect how people live today, a model that does not support working families, a model that simply does not work anymore. At its heart this is about choice. It is about trusting workers, and it is about recognising that when we support workers, we strengthen families and we strengthen our economy. Only Labor is backing that future. Only Labor is supporting families, and only Labor will protect these rights in law.