Portfolio — 13 August 2026

Child safety and institutional accountability dominated the Member for Kew's Assembly contributions across this window, with the Leader of the Opposition — the Member for Kew, Ms Wilson — anchoring her most substantial address around a formal apology to victim-survivors of child sexual abuse in Victorian government schools [TA-260730-vichns-06b70b591935:s059].

Speaking on behalf of the Liberal and Nationals coalition, she stated: "we are sorry, without reservation or qualification." Her address drew extensively on the Beaumaris board of inquiry's findings that the Department of Education woefully failed to protect children between 1960 and 1994 through six systemic failures — absence of policies and procedures, absence of staff guidance, prioritisation of institutional reputation over child safety, lack of staff training, poor record-keeping and information-sharing, and absence of systemic reviews.

The scale she described was stark: over 400 government schools named in civil claims or redress applications, representing close to one in three secondary schools operating between 1950 and 1999, with the abuse and its concealment characterised as systemic and widespread rather than isolated.

The Leader of the Opposition extended her child safety argument beyond the historical record into contemporary regulatory failure, connecting the Department of Education's documented failures to a 2025 case in which a Melbourne childcare worker was charged with over 150 offences against children across multiple centres despite holding a valid working with children check.

She attributed that failure to the same structural deficiencies — poor information-sharing and inadequate regulatory oversight — threading a line from decades-old institutional misconduct to present-day gaps in the child protection system.

The Member for Kew also used Assembly question time to press the government on two major live controversies. On the Suburban Rail Loop, she directed questions to both the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop and the Premier, challenging the government's position on whether it supports cancelling or pausing the project, whether it stands by the $34.5 billion cost estimate for Suburban Rail Loop East, and asking what has changed since the Premier's earlier statement that the government cannot wait to get on with the project [TA-260730-vichns-06b70b591935:s065].

On the Big Build corruption matter, she asked the Premier directly how many government officials he had personally spoken to before publicly stating — to the Guardian — that he does not believe government officials knew about alleged corruption as it unfolded, and did so before a royal commission had even been established to test that question [TA-260811-vichns-559d5117f54a:s025].

Both lines of questioning placed the Premier personally in the frame rather than targeting ministerial proxies.

The Member for Kew also led a condolence motion for John Dyson Harrowfield, a former member for Mitcham who served as Minister for Finance and Minister for Small Business under Premier Kirner between 1982 and 1992, paying tribute to his parliamentary seriousness, his research, and his commitment to the Labor Party [TA-260811-vichns-559d5117f54a:s002].