Thousands of hours of work could be wasted as state government lets reports languish

Community groups fear thousands of hours of work will go to waste if the Andrews government leaves any of the 16 inquiries currently before parliament in limbo, after nine committees handed down recommendations that the government has so far not responded to.

The Age revealed on Monday that the government’s response to a major homelessness inquiry is 22 months overdue. That’s despite legislation stating that responsible ministers should table a reply to a parliamentary committee’s final report within six months.

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto says it’s clear the government is thumbing its nose at parliamentary inquiries. Credit: AAP

The revelation has dismayed community groups, who say they spend hundreds of hours drafting parliamentary submissions, plus several more hours preparing for and appearing at hearings if representatives give evidence in person.

Victoria’s ongoing parliamentary inquiries include upper house probes into the 2022 floods and stamp duty, as well as a select committee examining native bird hunting. The stamp duty and duck shooting inquiries are due to hand down their findings next month, while the flood inquiry’s final report is not due until June 2024.

Maribyrnong Community Recovery Committee chair Madeleine Serle said she spent about a week working on her submission to the parliamentary floods inquiry but also helped hundreds of others with their submissions.

“I couldn’t tell you how many hours,” she said. “Easily more than 100. It was a huge process and, frankly, it’s still not over.”

She said she would be appalled if the government let the inquiry’s final report languish for years, as was the case for issues such as homelessness and cannabis reform.

“I think it would be an absolute fail and a complete derogation of statutory and public duty. It would be so disrespectful.”

Regional Victorians Opposed to Duck Shooting representative Kerrie Allen said her organisation would have easily poured 200 hours of work into its submission for the native bird hunting inquiry.

She said members, who are all volunteers, would be devastated if the government waited years to respond to the inquiry’s final report.

“To have something like this left in limbo would be the last straw for a lot of people.”

Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell agreed, saying: “Many NGOs involved in the process spent weeks working on their submissions. They have faith the government will listen to the outcome.”

The RSPCA, which filed a 24-page submission to the native bird inquiry, estimates it spent about 120 hours working on its report. The organisation wants duck hunting banned in Victoria.

Field & Game Australia, which wants duck hunting seasons to remain, filed a 63-page submission. Some submissions from individuals amounted to a simple email containing less than 100 words.

The duck hunting inquiry received more than 9000 submissions, a state record. Accounting for the discrepancy in length between personal and organisational submissions, if each document took an average of 30 minutes to complete, that would still amount to a combined 4500 hours of work on behalf of the community.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto said the state government needed to reassure the community that parliamentary submissions would not be made in vain.

“The Andrews government doesn’t respect the Victorian people because it doesn’t respect the Victorian parliament,” he said.

“We have mounting evidence of the Andrews government just thumbing its nose at the important work of the parliament, whether it’s the flood inquiry or other inquiries.”

The government’s response to the homelessness report is 22 months overdue, the medicinal cannabis response is 17 months late, while the air pollution response and the ecosystem decline response are about a year late each. A number of other inquiries are also waiting on late responses from the government.

A government spokeswoman said: “The government will respond to each inquiry report as soon as possible.”

The Legislative Council’s flood inquiry was initiated after the Coalition and the Greens joined forces in the state’s upper house. More than 500 homes and businesses in Melbourne’s inner northwest were inundated by floodwaters in October last year, while two men died in the state’s north.

The government has said the duck shooting inquiry was set up to address the “deeply held views on the subject”. Western Australia banned duck hunting in 1990, NSW followed suit in 1995 and Queensland banned the practice in 2005.

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