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VCOSS Policy Tracker
A comprehensive list of social policies proposed ahead of the 2022 Victorian election.
Our policy analysts identify, distill and record the significant social policy pledges made by Labor, the Liberal-National Coalition and the Greens.
Have me missed a policy? Please let us know.
Policy Tracker FAQs
How does VCOSS locate policies?
The detailed policy statements underpinning the major parties’ election commitments are sometimes posted online or available upon request. We will use our contacts and influence to obtain official policy documents and make them available.
What if there isn’t a formal policy document?
If no formal policy document exists we will piece together a fair representation based on public statements and media releases.
What about existing government policies?
This site specifically catalogues election pledges. Existing government policy positions are not currently listed.
When is a policy not a policy?
This is not a website that collates broad principles, philosophies or wishy-washy ‘motherhood statements’.
We list clear, specific and well-defined policies.
The Policy Tracker will not list small projects or individual grants that form part of a broader program.
For example, we will not list a promise to provide $800,000 to improve lighting in the Baconbucket Memorial Gardens. But we will happily list the wider $100 million Regional Community Upgrades Program this grant sits under.
Does VCOSS endorse political platforms or parties?
No. Never.
When we see good policy, we praise it.
If we see a particularly bad policy proposal, we’ll call it out.
Where are the Nationals?
The Policy Tracker assumes the continuation of the Liberal-National Coalition, should these two parties be in a position to form government.
Policies listed as ‘Liberal Party’ should be taken to represent the position of the Liberal-National Coalition, as led by the Liberal Party Leader, Matthew Guy.
What about the minor parties and independents?
Minor parties and independents don’t traditionally release comprehensive policy platforms.
The sheer volume of minor parties and independents contesting the Victorian election also makes cataloguing their policy positions difficult.
However, if a minor party or independent candidate releases a significant policy we will consider including it.
This will be done at our discretion. It will likely be the exception, not the rule.
⦿ Inclusion
What does VCOSS recommend?
- A shared future for Victoria
- Go further with gender responsive budgeting
- Improve the wellbeing of LGBTIQ+ Victorians
- Ensure inclusive recovery for culturally and linguistically diverse Victorians
- More funded support for our carers
- Make public spaces safe, accessible and inclusive
- Tackle loneliness head-on
- Extra support for community connector organisations
- End digital exclusion
- Make all mainstream services and support accessible for Victorians with a disability
- Support people with disabilities to have choice and control over decisions that affect them
- Fix the interface between the NDIS and state systems for Victorians with a disability
- Increase long-term funding for the Victorian disability advocacy sector
- Increase access to public and community transport
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Funding of $1m over four years to support the LGBTIQ+ radio station Joy 94.9.
- Fund a “dedicated professional legal support service for the LGBTIQ+ community” located at the Pride Centre.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Health
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Close the Aboriginal health gap
- Reinforce community health services
- Offer vulnerable people health assistance before they ask for it
- Lock in increased investment in the Women’s Health Program
- Boost access to mental health care now, while progressing big structural reforms
- Invest in a modern treatment system for alcohol and other drug users
- Provide more timely access to public dental care
Labor
- Redevelop and expand the Maroondah Hospital, and re-name it after Queen Elizabeth. ($850 million – $1 billion.)
- Fund the second stage of redevelopment works at the Wonthaggi Hospital ($250 to $290 million)
- Redevelop three public aged care homes, in Cohuna, Numurkah and Maffra ($170 million).
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Build or upgrade “at least 20 hospitals” (with money “saved” from discontinuing the Suburban Rail Loop.)
- Establish a Victorian Ministerial Health Workforce Council to audit and advise on health workforce challenges.
- $325 million Future Health Workforce Plan to train 18,000 “new and upskilled” nurses and midwives.
- Free public transport for health workers
- Establish a Royal Commission into Victoria’s response to COVID.
- “Halve surgery waiting lists” over the next four years.
- Build an Infectious Diseases Response Centre.
- Launch a mental health worker recruitment drive, offering scholarships and support packages.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Cost of living
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Formalise Victoria’s commitment to ease the cost of living
- Help people access existing entitlements
- Grow the financial counselling sector to match need
- Boost food relief now, while developing a long-term plan
- Fund an ongoing suite of independent energy advice services
- Wipe COVID-era utility debt for those in need
- Remove barriers to clean, energy-efficient technology
- Protect household gas users from market abuse
- Keep energy retailers honest
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Launch a government smartphone app that compares fuel prices costing $1 million over four years.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Children and families
What does VCOSS recommend?
- End childhood inequity in a generation
- Connect more families to early help through right@home
- Keep strengthening the child and family services system
- Relieve cost-of-living pressure on our foster and kinship carers
- Increase community connection and support for foster and kinship carers
- Support the children of incarcerated Victorians
- Increase support for parents with disability
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Amend the Worker Screening Act to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations “to ensure Working with Children Check Victoria is able to consider all relevant information relating to a person’s risk to children”.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Education, skills and training
What does VCOSS recommend?
- More high-quality play-based learning
- Help vulnerable children and families engage in kindergarten
- Support inclusion in early childhood education and care services
- Support community-based early learning services to thrive
- Make public education free
- Support students with disability to thrive
- Address learning and wellbeing needs to support student engagement
- Prevent expulsions and suspensions
- Give students industry insights and life skills
- Support disadvantaged adult learners to engage in education
- Support learners to complete VET (TAFE) qualifications
- Provide learners with wraparound support and accessible, high-quality training
- Support place-based training to meet local community needs
Labor
- A school upgrades program, with announcements already made for schools in Mount Waverley, Bendigo and Keysborough. No overarching policy has been released.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Simplify the prep – Year 10 curriculum, under the guidance of an “expert panel”.
- School upgrades promised for multiple locations (including Warrandyte High School, Beverley Hills Primary School, Scoresby Secondary College and Cheltenham East Primary School.) No overarching policy has been released.
- Deploy Mental Health Practitioners in all primary and secondary schools.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Work
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Target help to people locked out of good jobs
- Develop local strategies to tackle unemployment and skills shortages
- Deliver Victoria’s first Youth Guarantee
- Advance women’s economic equity
- Create more jobs for people with disabilities
- Provide a pathway into work – or back to work – for carers
- Help people with lived experience become community service workers
- Support the community sector as Victoria’s jobs engine room
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Initiative a $2.5 billion Rebuilding Jobs and Bringing Manufacturing Home program to encourage manufacturing ($1 billion to be spent in regional areas.)
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Community sector
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Coming soon
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
Watch this space.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Climate
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Coming soon
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
Watch this space.
- Legislate an emission reduction target of 50 per cent by 2030.
- Increase tree canopy coverage across Melbourne from about 15% to 35% 2050.
- Rebates of up to $4,400 for home owners who install solar or batteries (capped at one million recipients)
- Rebates of up to $8,800 for renters to “work with their landlord” to install solar or batteries (capped at 100,000 recipients)
- Adding solar panel to public schools and public housing, and other public infrastructure.
- Establish a “Fixing Victoria’s Grid” taskforce to plan transmission system modernisation.
Greens
- Back new rental standards for energy efficiency and cooling.
⦿ Housing and renting
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Coming soon
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- “Deliver” 50,000 new lots of land across rural and regional Victoria within two years and help local councils “fast-track planning approvals”.
Greens
- Stop property investors from increasing rents faster than wages are growing.
- Support the establishment of a Housing Ombudsman.
- Longer leases and “stronger protections against unfair evictions”.
⦿ Family violence
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Coming soon
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
Watch this space.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Justice
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Coming soon
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Measure and publicly report on police response times.
- Increase funding to IBAC by $10 million per year.
- Restore IBAC’s powers to conduct public hearings.
- Increase funding to the Victorian Ombudsman by $16 million over five years.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Revenue
What does VCOSS recommend?
- Coming soon
Labor
Watch this space.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Establish a parliamentary Public Works Committee to scrutinise major infrastructure projects.
- Audit all capital projects worth more than $100 million.
Greens
Watch this space.
⦿ Transport
Labor
Push ahead with the Suburban Rail Loop.
NOTE: The VCOSS Policy Tracker does not list past announcements or the ongoing policies of the current Victorian Government.
Coalition
- Scrap the Suburban Rail Loop (and spend any savings on health).
Greens
Watch this space.
VCOSS acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country. We pay respect to Elders both past and present, and to emerging leaders. Our offices are located on the sovereign, unceded land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.