Victorian campaign launches set out competing health and youth-justice promises

Victoria's major parties used their campaign launches on 15 November to draw different paths towards the 28 November state election. Liberal leader Jess Wilson made youth offending, policing and a change of government central to her Melbourne address. Premier Ben Carroll put public hospitals and access to treatment at the centre of Labor's event in Moonee Ponds. These are election promises, rather than services or laws already delivered.

Coalition proposes a camp and stronger policing

Wilson proposed a camp for offenders aged 14 to 17 at the former Dhurringile Prison near Shepparton. She said it would be an alternative to a community corrections order or another custodial sentence, with a daily routine covering physical activity, education, agriculture, cleaning and maintenance. She also promised to introduce an adult-crime sentencing policy before Christmas for 25 serious offences, including arson and motor-vehicle theft.

The opposition's wider platform includes 3,000 extra police, returning protective service officers to railway stations and recruiting another 200 for high-risk shopping centres. Wilson also pledged to repeal Victoria's treaty, restore technical colleges, abandon activity-centre planning and build three select-entry public high schools. On household costs, she promised no new or increased taxes, removal of the emergency services tax and a first-homebuyer stamp-duty exemption for properties worth up to $1 million.

Wilson accused Labor of waste, unsafe streets and a growing tax burden after 12 years in office. Her references to alleged corruption and a loss of up to $15 billion on the Big Build were political allegations in her speech, not findings established by the campaign launch itself.

Labor puts public treatment capacity first

Carroll promised 100,000 additional planned operations in public hospitals at a cost of $1.17 billion, alongside 500,000 extra specialist appointments costing $195 million. Health Minister Ingrid Stitt said 30 percent of the operations would be in regional Victoria. Labor says the surgery package would halve the planned-surgery waiting list. The Coalition has also promised to halve that list, but its October policy uses private hospitals to help clear the backlog.

The new commitments sit beside Labor's earlier proposals for 20 free dental clinics and 750 more nurses across 12 emergency departments. Carroll said emergency waits would fall 20 percent and planned-surgery waits 50 percent. His wife Fiona Rothville introduced him and described dangerous pregnancy complications; Carroll said public healthcare had saved both her and their daughter Madeleine.

Former premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles attended Labor's launch; three former premiers attended the Liberal event. Carroll defended investment since 2014, citing the Metro Tunnel,121 new schools and 12 new hospitals, while acknowledging mistakes and difficult economic conditions. He challenged the affordability of the opposition's promises. Both parties now have to persuade voters that their targets can be funded and delivered.