“We are bringing back the SEC. It’s an opportunity for tens of thousands of workers,families and communities.

“We are replacing offshore profits with offshore wind renewable megawatts ... and it’ll drive down the cost of power for Victoria and families.”

The announcements came as Opposition Leader Matthew Guy also held his launch on Sunday,which was likewise focused on energy.

Guy pledged to “turbocharge” the state’s gas production and to pay the network charges on household power bills for the first six months of 2023.

As part of theVictoria’s Agenda election series,readers toldThe Age they wanted the major parties to explain how they would limit the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

In survey responses toThe Age this week,many readers nominated reducing greenhouse gas emissions as their top priority.

“We are facing a climate emergency now and there’s no time to waste,” said one woman from Melbourne.

Another reader said she felt “state governments can have a major impact on fighting climate change”.

While a male reader over 65 years of age noted:“If we don’t reduce global warming,nothing else matters.”

Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan criticised the former Kennett Liberal government for the privatisation of Victoria’s electricity sector during the campaign launch speech,prompting boos and “shame” from what Andrews described as Labor’s “true believers”.

“Who did well out of it? Not SEC workers ... not our community,and certainly not the people of Victoria who are still paying the price,” Allan said.

“The only ones who did well out of it were those private multinationals and the Liberal Party,who could finally cross ‘destroy the public utility’ off their bucket list.”

The premier also promised a $207 million to upgrade specialist schools and to fund programs to assist people with disabilities.

The package includes the extension of after-hours care to every specialist school,funding for therapy animals and pools for aqua therapy and the provision of 1000 scholarships for disability workers,occupational therapists and speech pathologists

Andrews told the crowd of supporters in Cranbourne on Sunday that his government had used “every single day with purpose” since his election in 2014.

Andrews spoke about his parents,Bob and Jan,noting the pair had instilled in him a “deep sense of fairness”,driving his desire to work hard and give back to the community.

He took the opportunity to spruik his government’s promise to make kindergarten free for all Victorian children from 2023,as a further antidote to cost-of-living pressures on young families.

“Mums and dads are sitting around kitchen tables,doing complicated sums trying to weigh up whether it’s really worth going back to work,that’s if you can find a childcare place,” he said.

“Not only is it hurting family budgets,it’s hurting our state’s bottom line – taking more than 26,000 women completely out of our workforce ... it shouldn’t be this hard.”

Early voting opens on Monday.

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